Way Back Home
by Septdeneuf
Summary: After being caught in the explosion of a portal, Lucy finds herself traveling through other worlds, without any way to contact her friends. Can she find her way back? Ch.10: Utopia - "Something like Freedom doesn't exist in this world"
1. No Magic in the Air

Way Back Home

A/N: This is actually two chapters, but I always hate it when the Prologue is chapter 1 and it makes the Chapter count for all following chapters look weird, so I decided to stick these two together.

_**Prologue**_

She wasn't quite sure where the realization had come from, to be honest, but in that one moment things couldn't have been more clear to Lucy.

All her friends had had it at one point or another. Their hero moment. Where they rose above and beyond what had previously been their limits and saved everything with the power they gained from their determination that stemmed from the bonds with their nakama.

This was hers.

She'd had one before, when she'd managed to summon the spirit king and save Loke, but she hadn't really been aware of how big it was at the time, too focused on trying to save her friend.

Now, as she stepped onto the platform that housed the portal device that was shaking so violently that the entire cave trembled with it, she knew exactly what she was doing. She had to solve this problem, or else it would mean destruction not only for her friends but possibly so many more innocent people. Failure was not an option.

The fighting was still going on around her, but as she plunged her hand into the well of unstable magical power it felt as though all the sounds stilled themselves, leaving only her and the device that was about to blow.

Closing a gate to another world that was so unstable it could very well rip both of their worlds to pieces, it was practically part of her job description. The glistening power danced its way up her arm as she concentrated all her power on pushing away the foreign world that was lying just beyond her fingertips. Just as if she was performing a forced gate closure she did her best to use her power to seal shut the gap between the worlds.

And it was working. A breathless laugh escaped her lips as she felt the other world distancing itself from her, growing ever further to the point that she could hardly tell it was still there.

But just as people had their hero moments, there was also the much less pleasant concept of 'oh shit' moments. One of which was occurring when Lucy realized that while she had succeeded in saving both her world and the other from colliding, the magic she was connected to was still violently unstable, and was fusing into her with a speed that barely left her time to fully realize what was happening.

From somewhere behind her, someone was shouting "Get away from there!" but it wasn't the most helpful suggestion, because even it she wasn't scared that letting go could make all her previous efforts go to waste, she probably wouldn't have been able to remove herself from the device anymore, anyway.

She really hadn't meant for this to be a moment of heroic self sacrifice. If she had it probably wouldn't have worked out that way, because Natsu had a knack for stopping people from doing that, but here she was, unable to get away from the device that was about to blow.

Lucy turned around, maybe to say something, maybe to say something, maybe to look at her friends one last time, she didn't even know herself, but before she could do either, there was a blinding flash of light, and everything went black around her.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Chapter 1 - No Magic in the Air<strong>_

When Lucy came to an undefined amount of time later, she twitched her fingers and was delighted to find that she still had fingers. And an arm. Two, even! Things were looking much better than she'd expected them to, to be honest. A wriggling of her toes confirmed that her legs were also still present and in working order, and if she took to the whole _Cogito ergo sum_ philosophy, the fact that she could check all these things was proof that she was still alive.

Maybe she should be taking notes about this feeling right now. Knowing the feeling of certain death and having miraculously escaped it would be great material for her novel. Not that this was the first time that feeling had happened to her, but she hadn't been able to write that down at those points in time, either.

She finally opened her eyes, and was a little confused to see that she was surrounded by green walls that looked like they were grown out of a tree. Not that she'd really had any expectations as to where she was, but this somehow didn't fit.

After looking at her hands for a moment, happy that they were still there, she used them to push herself up from the soft bed with white sheets she was laying on.

"Oh hey!", a cheerful voice greeted her. "Lucy! She's awake!", he yelled, and Lucy saw a very familiar looking head of rose hair. "Not you", he told her. "I mean, yes, you're the one that's awake, but not the one I was talking to. I was telling the other Lucy, cause you probably know you're awake, but she doesn't."

At the half confused half irritated look Lucy shot him, he threw up his hands and whimpered. "I'm sorry!"

It was then she noticed his flame lined black pants and the goggles on his forehead, paired with a noticeable lack of scarf. Lucy blinked several times at the realization,her mind a little slow to catch up with what she was seeing.

Just then the door opened and the sight of herself in a tight leather outfit with slightly shorter hair (though it had grown since they'd last met) let the doubts dissipate from her mind. She was, without a doubt, back in Edolas. "How did this happen?", she asked aloud.

"Beats me", Lucy Ashley said with a shrug. "Jet and Droy found you lying somewhere in the wasteland on their last mission, decided to take you here"

"We sort of thought you would be able to tell us how you got here", Natsu Dragion said with a timid smile, half hiding behind Edo-Lucy even though Lucy was reasonably sure that her counterpart was the more dangerous of the two.

"Uh…" Lucy said dumbly and tried to recall what had happened before she'd woken up here. Oh right, the fight with that cult, the transdimensional portal thing and her brilliant scheme to fix that. And the explosion. "There was a big explosion."

"Isn't that what your Fairy Tail always does? Make stuff explode?", Lucy Ashley asked, even though she didn't seem all that interested.

"Yeah… not really sure how that made me end up here. How long was I out?"

"You've been sleeping here for about a day, but we don't know how long you were out before Jet and Droy found you, Earthland-Lucy-san", Edo Natsu said.

"Huh. Well I have to go back", Lucy said. "Can you help me?"

"And how are we supposed to do that? Not sure if you know, but we don't have any magic in this world anymore", Edo Lucy said. "You're gonna have to find a way on your own." Edolas Fairy Tail. Eager to help a friend in need as always. How they managed to pull off any missions really was beyond her.

"How helpful", Lucy said sarcastically.

"Oh don't whine, we took you in, nursed you back to health and what do we get for our trouble? This attitude?" Edo Lucy said with a scowl on her face.

"Actually we just waited…", Edo Natsu said, but at Edo Lucy's glare he threw his hands up again and apologized profusely.

Lucy sighed. "Sorry, I just really wasn't expecting ever to be here again." They had helped her, she had to admit that. She could still be lying around somewhere being eaten by a giant toad or whatever was hopping around in this crazy world.

"Yeah, well we weren't expecting to see you again, either. This time nobody got turned into Lacrima, right?", Edo Lucy asked.

"Not that I know of", Lucy replied. "But now that I am here, I do want to know, how have you guys been doing without magic?"

"Okay, I guess. A lot of stuff isn't as comfortable as before, but we came up with some creative solutions for some everyday problems, meaning the guild's business is dong better than ever. And we're not a dark guild anymore, since guilds are allowed again, that's a plus", Lucy Ashley explained.

"And I'm rich!", Edo Natsu supplied with a grin on his face. When Lucy Ashley shot him another glare he quickly amended, "But only because Lucy realized the business opportunity and took over regulating the business, and as my business partner she's rich, now, too."

"That's better."

"How did you get rich?", Lucy asked, choosing this over the other question that had occurred to her which was if he was rich, how come he was still wearing exactly the same clothes he'd been wearing before. Couldn't he afford something nicer, now.

"Well, without magic my car wouldn't run, and you know, without it I'm kinda…"

"The biggest wuss in the universe", Lucy Ashley said helpfully.

"Yeah that", Edo Natsu admitted with a slight blush. "So I really needed my car to get going again, and I managed to find a way, and I thought I could just do transportation missions again, like I used to, but Lucy came up with the idea that we could build more non magical cars and sell them. And that's doing really well."

"Really? You managed to make your car go without magic?", Lucy asked, intrigued.

"Yeah. With refined oil, and a system that makes a small explosion in a…", he started with a proud grin on his face, but Edo Lucy interrupted him. "Blabla, nobody cares as long as it makes money." She completely ignored the dejected look Natsu had on his face as he let out a sigh at not being able to explain his genius invention and turned to face Lucy.

"So anyway, now that you're here, there was a question I'd been meaning to ask you, but I didn't get to when you were here. How's the sex?"

Lucy felt her cheeks growing very warm "Wha… What sex?", she asked, confused.

"You know, with your Natsu. I mean he's a lot more badass than mine, but if you guys are so different, I bet it's all vanilla", Lucy Ashley said with a mischievous grin.

"I don't have sex with Natsu!", Lucy practically shrieked.

"No? Oh right, the Gray from your world is the one that doesn't wear any clothes, right? How's he?"

"I don't have sex with Gray, either. Or anybody for that matter!" It occurred to Lucy just a moment too late that this wasn't information she'd want for Edo Lucy to have, but it was too late, now.

"No? Then what do you have the whip for?" The way Edo Natsu said it, in his sweet tone, with a completely innocent look on his face made Lucy need a moment before she realized it was probably the perviest thing anybody had ever said to her. It took her significantly less time to decide that he needed to be beaten up for it. As she chased him around the room, him doing his best to shield himself with his arms and apologizing over and over, Lucy Ashley was laughing so hard that she had to clutch her stomach and her face went red from lack of oxygen.

* * *

><p>After Lucy was done beating Edo Natsu into a whimpering mess (which really wasn't much of a difference, to be honest) she'd went with him and Edo Lucy to get some food in the guild hall. She had never been there herself, and had met most of the guild members only briefly during their final fight against the royal army, so she enjoyed seeing them and noticing the differences between them and her friends.<p>

She ended up having tea with Cana who spouted endless speeches about how a proper lady should not drink alcohol (Lucy was planning on teasing her Cana with those, as soon as she was back home), and then joined Levy (who was nice enough, if you didn't mind her incredibly short fuse) in a scheme to steal Gray's jacket, which was a success, and led to him clinging to Juvia because he was so cold. That didn't end well for him.

But as much as she enjoyed spending the afternoon with Edolas' Fairy Tail it was equally clear to her that she wouldn't be like Lisanna and simply accept the fact that she was stuck here. Fortunately she had a suspicion on who could help her.

"So, how do I find Mystogan?", she asked her Edolas counterpart.

"Who?", Lucy Ashley asked, confused. "Wait… you don't mean King Gérard, do you?"

"Well, I think I do, why?"

"You can't just walk into the castle and go talk to the King!", Edo Natsu said, looking slightly scandalized at the idea.

"Why not?" Lucy wanted to know.

"Because he's the King!"

"So? He knows me, and with all the travelling he did in Earthland he probably knows how to get back", Lucy reasoned. Not that she knew him particularly well, but she didn't have to tell them that. One conversation in which he'd stayed infuriatingly enigmatic wasn't really knowing him, but it was close enough. He was a (former) Fairy Tail mage, after all.

"You Earthland people really have no respect for the way things are going, do you?", Edo Lucy asked, sounding sort of annoyed, but maybe, if Lucy wasn't imagining it, also a little fond.

"It's not an Earthland thing in general, mostly just us Fairy Tail mages", Lucy explained.

"Well, if you want to barge into the royal castle, who are we to stop you? Natsu, take her there and then let her figure out the rest for herself", Edo Lucy instructed, to which Edo Natsu reacted by going significantly paler.

"M…Me?", he stuttered.

"Well I don't see anyone else here who recently invented a revolutionary way of powering a car and is specialized on transportation, do you?", she snapped at him, making him, once again, apologize while shielding himself.

* * *

><p>Once they'd made it to the Royal Castle, which really wasn't that far since the Guild had relocated to be on the outskirts of the Capital, Lucy was really glad to be leaving the car. It mostly looked the way it had before, but now it was incredibly loud, so that it really didn't make much of a difference that Natsu transformed into his confident self, because she couldn't hear a word he said, anyway.<p>

And it also filled the air around it with stinky smoke. All in all Lucy wasn't sure if this was really so much better than simply walking, but she didn't want to hurt the timid Natsu's feelings. Who knew if she might need his assistance again. Then again, she was reasonably sure that Edo Natsu wasn't capable of holding a grudge, anyway.

She said goodbye to him as he dropped her off and pointed out where she needed to go (or he could've been pointing out his favorite bakery, who knew, since his words were lost in all the noise the car was making even as it wasn't moving.

But the huge door she was standing in front of did look rather important, with several scowling members of the royal army standing in front of it, eyeing her suspiciously. Their clothes had different colors and a different logo on them than before, but all in all they didn't look too different from when she'd been fighting them, which honestly didn't give her a very good feeling.

Still, she had to get past them, so she drew up her shoulders and walked towards them with all the confidence she could muster.

"Hi. I'm here to speak to the king", she said.

"And why should we let you talk to him?", one of the guards asked grumpily. "He's the king, sure, but he can't take care of everybody's little problems."

"He knows me. Tell him Lucy Heartfilia from Magnolia is here, and I'm sure he'll want to speak to me", Lucy announced. She wasn't quite sure if he knew the different last names from Earthland's and Edolas's Fairy Tail members, so she mentioned the name of the town. It seemed safer to her than telling them she was from Earthland, because she had no idea how they'd react to that.

The guard she was talking to grumbled something to one of his colleagues, who left grumbling. None of them seemed particularly eager to help her, but it seemed as if they weren't ignoring her, at least. "Wait here", he told Lucy and went back from scowling at her to scowling at the world at large.

Lucy was left to stand around awkwardly, looking around at the puzzlingly green sky and the town that still didn't seem quite recovered from the havoc that had been caused by the Dragonslayers when the magic had gone away.

Suddenly she heard the quick pitter patter of feet coming from the castle, and saw Coco running towards her, who seemed to have grown a lot. Right. Seven years would've passed in Edolas as well. So why weren't they done repairing the town yet.

"Kind Gérard wants to see you at once", Coco said, panting. "Follow me, please." The guard at the door looked extremely surprised at that statement, and Lucy couldn't shooting him a smug grin.

"Why are you back?", Coco said with trepidation as soon as they were out of the guard's earshot. "Is something wrong?"

"I didn't mean to come here, and I'm hoping Mystogan will be able to help me get back home", Lucy explained. Coco looked doubtful at that, but apparently decided not to comment.

After just a few corridors Lucy was completely lost and knew that if she didn't follow Coco she might never see the light of day again, and did her best to keep up the girl's pace. She was walking, but apparently Coco's normal speed wasn't what most people would consider walking.

At one of turns a small, creepy looking figure emerged, and Lucy had to suppress a shiver when she realized it was Byro, the guy she had fought before, who had turned into a giant squid. Without meaning to, her fingers found their way to grip her keys, just in case.

"Well well well, what do we have here?", he said in that sly tone of his. "An Earthland mage, I believe. Are the dark ages of lost magic finally over?"

"I'm supposed to take her to the king", Coco said.

"Why so hasty? With her at our disposal maybe we can find a way to undo the damage the demon king Dragneel did…"

"Oh shut up, Squid dude", Lucy said. "You can't turn into a giant monster anymore, so don't expect me to be afraid of you. By the way, was it you who came up with that stupid plan of letting the Lacrima collide with the Exceed so it rains down eternal magic?"

"That plan wasn't stupid!", the guy defended.

"Yes it was. Did no one realize that the only reason the Exceed and Earthland, too have unlimited magic is that they can produce it in their bodies, by being alive? If you'd killed them, you'd have had all their power for a while, but no one capable of regenerating, and a few years down the line you'd have had the same problem you had before." Byro looked at her for a moment, dumbfounded. "And now get out of the way, I need to talk to your king."

Really, she'd had an impulse to summon Taurus to beat that guy up, because frankly, she was still pissed at him, but when she'd reached for her keys she'd realized that she couldn't feel any magic power emanating from them, just as it had felt when she'd been bound with that strange jelly substance. Not good at all.

Byro didn't have a chance to answer before Coco set off again and Lucy followed her.

"He still works here?", Lucy asked.

"Not in such an important position anymore, but he's not allowed to leave the city, so we can't really get rid of him. It was his punishment for his involvement in the events back when you guys were here", Coco explained. That punishment didn't make a lot of sense to Lucy, but before she had a chance to inquire about it, Coco stopped and gestured towards a door.

"The king is in here." For a moment Lucy expected her to open the door and lead the way, but apparently that wasn't going to happen. So Lucy pushed the door open herself, and found herself in a huge room with a throne at the end and several tables with chairs around them close to the door. It was at one of those she found Mystogan. He still wore those strange pants, and looked pretty much the same, except that all of his clothes looked to be much better cared for than before.

He looked up as soon as she entered, and he didn't look at all happy to see her. He was standing next to a few maps and at his table Lucy could see Erza Knightwalker, who also didn't look too happy to see Lucy.

The feeling was mutual, really. After Erza Knightwalker had tried to execute Lucy, the celestial mage had gotten rid of her idea that if she was Erza she must be nice, and she was still a little miffed at that incident.

"Lucy", Mystogan said urgently. "You're not supposed to be here!" he hissed, dragging her to a corner of the room as if to hide her presence, even though she was reasonably sure that Knightwalker was the only person in the room aside from them, and she had already seen her.

"Nice to see you, too", Lucy said sarcastically.

"That's not what I mean. There's not supposed to be any magic in Edolas, so how did you even get here?"

"I'm not really sure, actually", Lucy said. "I was trying to stop some sort of magical portal thing from exploding, and next thing I know, he sky is green. I was actually hoping you'd know how I can get home."

"No, I don't. I always used Anima to cross between the worlds, and seeing how that used magic itself it can't be done anymore", he explained.

"So you mean I'm stuck here?" While her friends back home possibly thought she was dead… what was up with copying Lisanna? She really didn't want that.

"No, you can't stay here. If people find out we have someone with magic here, you could become a target. There's still plenty of people who aren't happy with the situation."

"It looked like you guys were doing pretty well without magic", Lucy observed.

"Some people are. Those that come up with creative solutions for things that we used to use magic for before are having a lot of success, but there's still a lot of people who used to have magic and basically lost their former livelihood. If they know there's magic here, there could be a riot."

"Do you still have those weird pills that make use of magic possible here? If I can at least use some magic, maybe we'll find a way to get me home with that", Lucy said. Maybe one of her spirits could come up with an idea, too, because she wasn't sure how getting back using her type of magic would really work.

"I have them, but I'm not sure they still work. It's worth a try though, I'll go get them." And with that he left her standing there.

She noticed Knightwalker looking at her oddly, but as soon as Lucy caught her, she looked away. The celestial mage wasn't sure if she should try to start a conversation, but she didn't really have anything to say to her. So she looked away, too, and both were left for a few minutes basking in the atmosphere of supreme awkward that pervaded the room.

They both breathed an audible sigh of relief when Mystogan returned, but both decided not to comment on it.

"Here. I don't know if this'll work, but let's hope for it", he said and handed her one of the tiny red balls. Lucy swallowed it, and touched her keys to see if there was any change in how they felt to her.

There wasn't any change with the keys. But there was a rather dramatic one with her hand. It suddenly started glowing the way it had just before the explosion, and Lucy could feel the same type of magic that she'd tried to contain fill her.

"Your majesty", Knightwalker yelled and pulled Mystogan away, as Lucy's glowing hand drew a large arch in the air, seemingly of its own account. The air in front of her started to glow, and before she had any chance to react to that, her hand stopped glowing and she was forcibly pulled into the light.

Leaving Erza and Mystogan staring at the spot in the air where she'd disappeared.

"Well, Problem solved", Erza announced. And it was.

For them at least.

* * *

><p>Lucy got up groaning and looked at her hand. It wasn't glowing anymore, but she could feel a slight tingling sensation, a sort of afterimage of the power she had just used. Grabbing her keys she still couldn't feel any magic emanating from them, but the weird magic that had made her open the portal, or whatever it was, was still inside her, just not nearly enough to be usable right now.<p>

She looked around and found that despite her hopes, she wasn't home.

She was in the middle of what looked like a desert, next to a dirt road, with absolutely nothing and nobody as far as the eye could see.

_Where the hell am I now?_

* * *

><p>AN: This is the third multi chapter story for Fairy Tail I've started in the last two weeks, and it's probably going to be the largest of them. Don't know what it is about this fandom, but I just keep getting ideas.

I'd really love to hear what you think of it. I know you shouldn't write just for the reviews, but it is a bit depressing that my brother's been the only one who reviewed the last two chapters I've posted (though thanks to him for that). I appreciate favs and alerts, too, but if you have a bit of time to write a review, I'd be really grateful. Also, if you have ideas for some cracky worlds Lucy could visit, tell me. I have plenty of angsty ones planned, but some humor in between would be nice :)


	2. Boulevard of Broken Dreams

Chapter 2 - Boulevard of Broken Dreams

A/N: You've been really good about reviewing, which motivated me to get this chapter to you more quickly (hint! Hint!). Also, this is the first ever of all my fanfiction chapters that had been betaed, thanks to my brother Cochrane for that, if you find any errors, yell at him ;)

* * *

><p>The sun was high in the sky and had apparently decided to mercilessly beat down on Lucy, just for having the misfortune of landing wherever she was now. She really wasn't wearing a lot, which made the scorching heat a little more bearable, but also ensured that she would be sunburned all over before she got anywhere.<p>

She had decided to follow the road, picking the direction to follow at random, and kept second-guessing herself if maybe the other way would've been the smarter choice, but changing her mind and going back really wasn't an option.

Her keys still didn't give off any impression of magic power. Wherever she was right now, she couldn't reach the celestial spirit realm with her calls. Anything but a reassuring thought. Looking around she was pretty sure Scorpio would've felt right at home here, and Virgo probably would've had a lot of fun digging holes, too. Even Loke probably would've had a good time. Sure, it wasn't quite suitable for real Lions (at least she hoped not. If one where to attack, she would be screwed) but he would probably still be in better shape then her, with her fair skin and skimpy clothes.

She watched the sun make its way across the sky as she kept walking, but it didn't really help her with orientation or being able to tell the time. All she knew was that she'd been walking for quite a long time, but her aching feet would've been enough to tell her that.

The road itself was the only thing giving her hope, really. If there was a road, even one that looked barely used as this one, there had to be some civilization. You didn't build a road that didn't go anywhere. Or so she hoped. Even finding a shaded place would've greatly helped her.

When she finally saw something in the distance, she wasn't sure whether to trust her eyes. But the further she got, the clearer it was. A small farmhouse, looking just a bit derelict, with a small windmill next to it. As she got closer she could hear the windmill creaking faintly, even though there wasn't any breeze to speak of.

Still, once she was sure that her eyes weren't playing tricks on her, she quickened her pace until she finally arrived in front of the house. It wasn't big and didn't look all that well kept. She really hoped it wasn't abandoned.

"Hello?", she called out. There was a noise from behind the house that might or might not have been someone reacting to her presence, so she decided to check back there. Next to the creaking windmill there was a patch of what looked like a sorry excuse for a field. A guy was working there, with some sort of farming device (to her shame Lucy had to admit that she knew next to nothing about farming thanks to her luxurious upbringing).

He dropped the whatever-it-was as soon as Lucy stepped near, though, and turned around to stare at her incredulously.

"Uh, hi", Lucy said, feeling a little self conscious under his stare. He looked so shocked to see her that he wasn't even blinking. "I don't want to bother you, but I was wondering if you maybe had some water for me?"

He didn't say anything but kept staring at her as though he'd seen a ghost. "Water's limited", he finally said in a really odd tone of voice.

But it was enough for her to notice that she knew that voice. And looking at him more closely, she realized that she knew the guy it belonged to as well. The dark hair didn't have the same blueish tinge, and he was way more tanned than she'd ever seen the ice mage look (much darker than Natsu, too) but it was without a doubt an alternate version of Gray Fullbuster, complete with droopy eyes and everything.

He was wearing worn out jeans and a dark plaid shirt, but it was open to reveal his abs, which Lucy only didn't stare at because it wasn't anything she hadn't seen before. Though she had to admit the dark tan, combined with the light dusting of stubble on his cheeks, made him look roguishly handsome.

The thought alone would probably be enough to get murdered by Juvia.

"Uh, well… if you could just give me a little to tide me over and point out where to go to the next town I'd be eternally grateful", Lucy tried.

He kept looking at her strangely. "There's no town", he said as if that was one of the most basic things to know.

"Well, wherever there's people and water would be good, then."

"There's no people." Well, no matter how good he looked, Lucy had to decide that this version of Gray was one odd cookie. "W…where do you even come from?"

"That's… sort of a long story", Lucy said evasively. She was reasonably sure that this wasn't her world, either, but she had no idea how familiar people in other worlds were with the idea that other worlds even existed, so it was probably prudent not to tell everybody anything.

"I got time", Gray said, and finally looked like he was over the shock of seeing Lucy. Good. Her hair was matted down from sweat and she was pretty sure she looked just as exhausted as she felt, but that didn't really warrant his weird reaction.

"Not sure if I should tell you", Lucy said hesitantly.

"I also got water", he said with just a shadow of a smirk on his face. Convincing argument, really.

"Well, then I've got a story for you."

* * *

><p>He didn't really look like he believed her as she told him her story. She probably could've done a better job telling it, too, because when she'd started talking about having arrived in Edolas, she got sort of sidetracked retelling their previous encounter with that particular world, and all in all that made for a pretty confusing tale.<p>

But he'd given her water and let her into his house, which wasn't too big, but still managed to be quite a bit cooler than the outside, so she reveled in being here for the moment.

"Pace yourself", he said as she was done with her story and drank the water he'd given her in big gulps. "I really don't have that much."

"Sorry", she said and slowed down a little.

"So, you're from a different world full of magic and got yourself lost by blowing up a portal thing…", he reiterated, not sounding too convinced.

"I didn't blow it up, it was gonna blow anyway, I just stopped it from taking all of Earthland and some other world, I'm guessing Edolas, with it. I just hope my friends are okay… it was a big explosion."

"Yeah, either that, or you're completely batshit crazy", Gray diagnosed, leaning back in his chair.

"I'm not crazy!", Lucy yelled indignantly.

"Crazy people don't think they are. But considering you managed to show up here, in the absolute middle of nowhere without any means of transportation, your story doesn't sound completely implausible. Or I'm going crazy, too." It didn't look as though the idea of being crazy himself really bothered him, though.

"So, your turn", Lucy said, looking around the small house. The afternoon sun was bathing it in a golden light that made everything look homey, but that didn't quite change the fact that the pots looked rusty, the chair she was sitting on was missing a leg, and the blanket on the bed seemed to consist of more patches than actual material.

"My turn, what?"

"What's your story? Why are you living in the desert on your own? And wait, what's your name, anyway?" She'd decided not to tell him that she knew a counterpart of his, so it would probably look weird if she just knew his name without asking.

"Gray. Like the color", he replied. Lucy was actually glad about that, because if he'd told her any other name now, she was just bound to have messed it up at one point or another.

He didn't say anything else, though, so Lucy looked around the room a little. It was bedroom, kitchen, dining room and living room all in one, with none of the furniture looking to be in very good condition, but tidy nonetheless.

One item caught her attention, however. It was a picture frame, and unlike everything else it looked as though it had been taken care of vey well. The glass was polished and the wood was shining, too. It was a red headed girl with a shy little smile on her face.

"Who's that?", Lucy asked, pointing at it. Gray looked in the direction, and is face fell a little as he let out a sigh.

"My girlfriend", he said in a tone Lucy couldn't quite interpret.

"Pretty. Where is she?", Lucy wanted to know. She looked somewhat familiar, but Lucy had trouble placing her, because she was pretty sure she didn't know anyone with light coppery hair like her. And the house didn't look as though anyone other than Gray himself lived there.

"She's dead", he said courtly, and Lucy suddenly felt terrible for having pried.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to…"

"It's been a long time", he said, as though that somehow made it better, but that look on his face told her that it didn't, not really. As she looked at the picture again, she suddenly realized why she'd looked familiar. It was Juvia. The red hair and the light dusting of freckles had put Lucy off, but now that she realized it, there was no doubt about it. "And everyone else is dead, too, so…"

"What do you mean by that? You said before 'There's no people', what's that supposed to mean?", Lucy asked. The way he was talking somehow made her uncomfortable, a feeling pooling in her stomach that she couldn't quite place.

"You really don't know, huh? That's actually harder to believe than the entire rest of your story." He scratched the back of his head, and then let out a sigh.

"It happened three years ago. Juvia, that's her name, and I had just gotten together. She'd actually been in love with me for quite a while, but I'd been sort of oblivious," At that Lucy couldn't help letting out an amused chuckle. "What?", he asked with a mildly irritated look.

"Sorry, just… that reminded me of someone I know who's in sort of the same situation."

"Oh", he said with a short nod. He wasn't looking at her as he carried on, a far away look on his face. "Anyway, we'd finally managed to work it out, and we were… really happy. The way her face lit up whenever I saw her… it was…" He took a deep breath. "Well it didn't last."

"There were some reports on the radio, but I hadn't really been paying attention to them, you know, about people who suddenly got sick, they were fine before, and then they died. The first one had happened, I don't know, like two days before, but no one was really taking it seriously yet, the doctors had just probably not found whatever was wrong with those people before…"

"We were on a date, it was a beautiful day, the beginnings of spring, pretty warm, but the ice rink was still there, and I'd promised to teach her how to skate. She was really talented, too, I don't think I picked it up that quickly when I learned it…" The look on his face reminded Lucy of those few occasions when he talked about Ul, a rare wistfulness in his eyes. And pain, too, which made Lucy feel like she was intruding as she saw it.

"She had good balance, but suddenly she fell and started coughing like… it was pretty scary, cause she just couldn't stop. And she insisted she was fine, just a little cold, even though she hadn't had any symptoms before, but she really didn't want our date to end. I managed to convince her to go to the hospital, but it probably wouldn't have mattered if she hadn't." He paused, looking at the picture, taking a deep breath before continuing.

"Two hours later she was dead. And no one had any idea why. She wasn't the only one it happened to that day, and that's when I started listening to the news of what was happening, and it was happening everywhere. Healthy people, dying, for no good reason. One news guy called it the 'three hour plague' and the name stuck."

"Over the next week it happened to more and more people, some people I knew, too, but none of that really registered for me, not the way it did with her… when the news started talking about millions I don't think anyone could really understand what it meant. And then… the next day… it was everyone. Like a dam was broken, or something, my friends, my family, just… everybody, within hours of each other. There were people lying around on the street, and not nearly enough people to even get them away from there, so they were just left lying there. In the evening there was an announcement from the government, everyone who was still alive should leave the cities, because of sanitary risks with the dead people lying around and we'd be notified when we could go back, when the crisis was over… last I ever heard from them."

"I left the city with a group of maybe twenty. I don't know why we weren't affected, neither did the others, but one by one it got them, too. Six months after the whole thing had started I was the only one left. Ever since then, I haven't seen anybody else. Until today, anyway."

Lucy sat there, glued to her chair, and had no idea what she was supposed to say to that. Whatever story she'd been expecting him to tell, this certainly wasn't it.

"So, you've been all alone all this time?", she asked breathlessly. It seemed too big to even imagine. Two and a half years without seeing anyone, talking to anyone… She wasn't sure if she could have handled that. Just imagining everyone she cared about suddenly dropping dead made her feel extremely cold inside.

"Pretty much. There's this girl, she must live somewhere in a hundred mile radius, but who knows where, she's got radio equipment, and I've been listening to her broadcasts. Helps a little."

"Does she know you're listening?"

Gray shook his head. "I don't have the equipment, I can't answer her."

"Did you ever go look for her?"

"No. I wouldn't even know which direction to go in. The water I get from my pump and the food I farm is enough for me, but I could never build a supply large enough to take on a journey like that. Staying here is really the only thing I can do."

Lucy didn't know what to say to that, so she stayed quiet.

* * *

><p>Later on she'd helped him cook, some sort of stew out of the vegetables he had, none of which looked all too tasty, if she was honest. The end result was… edible. It wasn't really that it tasted bad, it barely tasted at all, to be honest, but it did help against the hunger, so she probably shouldn't complain.<p>

After dinner Gray had turned the radio on. It was old and crackling static was the only thing that could be heard, but he sat in front of it patiently, waiting for something. Lucy didn't really know what to do, so she went outside and sat on the porch, looking out at the sunset that was quite stunning.

The door was open, so she could hear when he said the radio, "Come on, Levy. You're never late."

Levy… thinking of the little blue haired bookworm, sitting in front of some old equipment and talking into the darkness without any idea if anyone was even still alive to hear her, made Lucy's heart ache. She couldn't imagine it. What it was like for Levy, Gray… she really tried, but it was just too big to fit into her head.

Maybe there were others, too, scattered across the globe, each one thinking they were the last person alive, or maybe clinging to the hope that they weren't. Was there a Lucy sitting out there, too? Or was she dead along with almost everybody else? If she was still alive, how was she doing? Lucy had never been good with isolation. She had been making friends with all the servants even though her father told her it was unbecoming… she'd be terrible in this world.

Was this what the end of the world looked like? Had it already ended, and what was left was just a fading afterimage? Or was this right now, the despair and loneliness and crushing silence, was this what an apocalypse really looked like?

It wasn't cold, but Lucy hugged her knees to her chest, anyway. The worst feeling for her was, to be honest, that she just couldn't help. As a Fairy Tail mage her job was helping people who needed it. And the people here, few and far though they were, really did need help. But what could she do?

"Not you, too", she heard Gray's voice say, thick with emotion, before a loud crash made her flinch. For a moment, Lucy didn't want to look, out of respect for his privacy. But then again, he'd been all alone for two and a half years. Privacy was not what he needed.

She got up and looked through the door. The radio was lying in pieces on the floor, and Gray was walking towards her.

"Sorry", he said, before sitting down next to her. She stared at the radio for a moment. What if Levy was just late and would start talking now, but her maybe only listener couldn't hear it anymore? Then again, it wouldn't make any difference for her, would it? She didn't even know anybody had been listening all this time.

"Do you think she's…?", Lucy asked hesitantly as she sat back down next to him.

His jaw tightened as he looked out onto the seemingly endless horizon filled with rocks and rubble and an oppressing amount of nothing. He didn't answer, but he didn't really need to. If he didn't think that, he wouldn't have destroyed the radio.

Lucy tried to think of a way to change the topic, but found herself at an uncharacteristic loss. "So…" she finally started. "What do you do all day, usually?"

"Work on the farm, pumping up water… that's actually what the windmill's for, but… not really the windiest of places. I have three books, I know them all by heart. Sometimes I talk to that lizard over there", he said, gesturing towards a small lizard sitting on a stone not far from them, lazily enjoying the last rays of the sun. "It's not very rewarding", he added.

"A salamander", Lucy said with a hint of a smile when she recognized the pattern.

"Is it?", Gray asked with little interest. "I've never really been good with that sort of stuff."

Somehow Lucy found it a little comforting that Gray had at least this friend. But thinking of the little lizard made her think of her world's Natsu, and she couldn't help the sigh that escaped her lips. What were her friends doing, now? Did they think she was dead, or were they looking for her? Did they miss her?

She missed them, for sure. It hadn't been that long, but being here in a practically empty world made her feel incredibly far away.

They watched the sun set in silence, and kept sitting there long after it was gone. Soon the first stars were visible.

"Wow…" she said, smiling at the sky. "The stars are beautiful, here"

"No lights anywhere to distract from them", Gray said. "It almost always looks like this."

Lucy loved the stars. As a child she'd loved sitting outside long after her bedtime and just gaze up, trying to memorize all of the constellations. It was no coincidence that she'd become a celestial mage.

"It's amazing", she said. "You can see so many constellations that are usually hardly visible." She could spot Cancer with ease, which, due to its lack of very bright stars, was usually more guesswork than seeing.

"I don't really know constellations. I sometimes find the Big Bear one, but that's about it", Gray said with a shrug.

"Well I'm sort of a specialist", Lucy said. "I can show you. Look, over there, see those three stars that form sort of an arc? That's the tail of the Lion. And then below that, there's one brighter star, that's Regulus." She traced the shape of the constellation with her fingers, trying to point it out. At the same time she tried imagine any way for Loke to sit that would make him fit into that picture in the sky, but it just wouldn't work.

"Above it, there's the little Lion", she said, pointing further up. She really wanted to get a key for one of those some day (she really didn't have many of the silver ones, considering) just so she could summon the lion cub and Loke at the same time and watch cuteness ensue.

"And if you go further down, there's Virgo, the maiden." _Is it time for my punishment, Princess? _"And if you turn your head to the left a little, over there is the Dragon." She sort of wanted one of those keys, because having a dragon fighting for her would probably be pretty cool. Then again, she already had Natsu, and she really didn't want him to beat up one of her spirits (and he would, just for sport, if it was a dragon).

She pointed out more of the constellations, seeing the pictures they painted appear before her eyes. Gray listened, occasionally interrupting her to ask for clarification on which star she was talking about, or to comment that some of them didn't really make sense with which she was inclined to agree, considering that Plue's constellation was only a line of two stars. Who came up with that?

Lucy wasn't sure if Gray was interested in the stars at all, but when she looked at him she could see a faint smile on his face, the first time she'd seen this version of Gray look anything close to happy. It probably didn't really matter what she was talking about, just the fact that she was there and she was talking at all was enough to make a difference.

Levy wasn't talking to him anymore. So Lucy would just have to make up for that.

* * *

><p>He had never explicitly invited her to stay, but after he'd gotten over his initial shock of seeing another person in his yard he was actually pretty accommodating. She had used spare blankets and pillows to construct something that was more like a nest than a bed, and stayed with him over the the course of the next week.<p>

Lucy helped him work on his little field, for the first time appreciating how much work it was to keep yourself fed if you couldn't just buy food, and talked to him. A lot. He didn't like talking about his world, about the life he'd been leading before everything had been lost, so she told him all sorts of stories she could think of, missions she'd been on, stories other people had told her, she even went so far as to tell him the plot of the novel she was writing, something not even Levy in her world was privy to. He seemed to like it, just like his counterpart that she always had to hide her manuscript from, because whenever her friends broke into her apartment, he wanted to know what happened next.

This Gray was much quieter than the one she knew, partly because there was no Natsu around to rile him up, partly as a result of his former isolation. It felt almost as if there was a word quota for the day he had and just stayed silent after he was done with those. Not to worry, though. Lucy could talk a lot. Not that she usually did, thank you very much, but she could.

She felt her magic power regenerating, but her keys stayed passive. A slight tingling in her hand told her, she would probably be able to open another portal soon. Now that she knew what it was, maybe she could control it, think of home as hard as she could while opening the portal and then go back there.

And leave Gray behind, to be completely alone once more? No, she couldn't do that. Staying here wasn't an option either, though. It was fine right now, with the two of them, but the silence was starting to feel heavy on her sometimes. Maybe she could take him with her. Hopefully; she had no idea if that was possible with the portals.

Five days after she'd arrived she was sitting in front of the salamander's favorite rock and trying to convince it to climb onto her hand. It was surprisingly tame, considering it wasn't actually a pet. She almost had all the power she needed to open a new portal.

"Hey Lucy, food's almost ready", Gray announced, coming out of the house. "Found a new friend?", he said with a raised eyebrow.

"Well, if he would just climb on my hand the way I'm trying to teach him, we'd probably be better friends, to be honest. Come on, lizard, it's not that difficult."

"Isn't it poisonous or something?", Gray asked, scooting down next to her.

"I… don't know actually", Lucy admitted. "But you know, no risk, no fun." Still, she pulled her hand back. She honestly hadn't even thought of that, and while she had been able to recognize the lizard as a salamander, which may or may not just have been wishful thinking on her part, she didn't know anything about those animals other than their association with Natsu.

"Wouldn't you rather be killed by my cooking skills?", Gray asked with a smirk on his face. His rare smile was becoming more and more common, and Lucy couldn't help but claim it as her own achievement. He offered her a hand and helped her up.

"Your cooking's not that bad", Lucy said.

"Yeah well," his voice sounded a little rough, but he cleared his throat. "It's not any good either."

"You know, I'm a polite person, so I should really protest now, but… I'm also sort of an honest person." He laughed at that, making Lucy smile, too, until his laughter dissolved in a fit of coughing.

"You alright?", Lucy wanted to know, when the coughing went on just a little bit longer than she'd expected it to.

"Yeah, fine", Gray waved off. "Dry throat is all."

"Let's go get you something to drink then", Lucy said. They went inside, and Lucy went to get the pot off the stove. It smelled just the same as it always did, since the cuisine really didn't have much variation (he claimed that sometimes it did, based on which of his odd vegetables was in season). As she carried it over to the table, Gray started coughing again, so loudly and suddenly that it was only by pure luck that Lucy didn't drop the pot.

"Are you sure you're okay?", she asked, setting down the pot and doing her best not to wince at the rough sound that made her think his bronchia were on a mission to dislodge themselves from his chest. He shook his head this time, and pressed one hand to his chest to alleviate the pressure, and just kept on coughing.

Lucy was at a loss what to do, but she got some water and set it down in front of him, but he didn't even pause coughing long enough to drink it. He was starting to go red in the face from lack of oxygen, and Lucy suddenly found herself remembering his story. …_suddenly she fell and started coughing like… it was pretty scary, cause she just couldn't stop… _was this…? No, it couldn't be the same thing.

When he finally stopped he grabbed for the glass and gulped down its contents, paying no heed to pacing himself due to limited supplies. "So…", he said. "This is it, then." He sounded oddly calm, taking a few deep breaths, but then he started coughing again.

"What?", Lucy asked dumbly, even though she knew what he was talking about.

The next coughing fit was thankfully much shorter. "It had to happen sooner or later. Guess I got later."

"I… I'm sure it's not that, you've just been working a lot, it's gonna go away", Lucy babbled, trying to convince herself just as much as him. He turned to look at her, looking way too calm for her taste, considering what he thought was going on.

"It is. Trust me, I know" And then there he went again, coughing so violently that just hearing the sound made her own lungs ache in sympathy. He got up shakily, bracing himself on the table, and he probably would have fallen if Lucy hadn't caught him. She half carried him over to the bed, which probably was his destination, and helped him lay down. He felt warm, way too warm, even though they were sitting in the desert.

She grabbed his hand as his coughs subsided a little, because it was really the only thing she could do.

"So you are real", he said with a faint smile as he squeezed her hand just a little. "I was afraid to find out."

"What?", Lucy asked, confused. Then she realized in all the time she'd been here she hadn't touched him before. It hadn't seemed like a big deal to her, she didn't often touch the Gray from her world, either, but now she realized he'd been avoiding it on purpose.

"I thought maybe you were just a figment of my imagination." He took a deep breath, thankfully not coughing this time. "I'm glad I was wrong. I didn't really think my imagination was creative enough to come up with all the crazy things you said, anyway." Maybe she should have been offended at that, or something, but she just laughed a little.

"I moved your stuff, I ate your food. It should have been obvious", she said.

"Two and a half years since I last saw anybody, I could've gone plenty crazy." He started coughing again, and Lucy had to blink away a few tears. As she did, she realized that her hand had started glowing. She felt the magic power in her, and realized that it probably wouldn't be long until she could open another portal.

He looked at her hand, too. "So does that mean you can go, now?" Apparently he'd been listening to her more carefully than she'd realized.

"I can take you with me. We'll find a way to cure this, and then you don't have to be alone anymore!"

"It's" cough "too late for that, I'd say." His skin had turned an unnaturally pale color, except for a feverish blush on his cheeks.

"No, it's not!", Lucy insisted. He was probably right, and she knew it, but she wouldn't be a Fairy Tail mage if she just accepted something like that.

"It's okay. It was bound to happen, I'm fine with it", he said. When she looked in his eyes, there was this serene look on his face, which made her choke for a bit with several emotions she wouldn't have been able to name in that moment.

"It's not okay", she protested weakly, "None of this is okay, it should never have happened."

"Nothing we can do about it." She couldn't think of an answer, so for a moment she could do nothing but listen to his ragged breathing, staring down at her hands. No one in this world had found any sort of explanation or cure for this disease, and she knew nothing about it, except for the fact that he didn't have a lot of time left. If she landed back in her own world and found Wendy extremely quickly, then maybe… but not even that was guaranteed. She wanted to save him, she really did, but she had no idea how to go about it. "You can go. It's fine", he suddenly said, making her head snap up. "You don't have to sit around here and watch me die."

"No", she replied with determination. "I'm not leaving." She grabbed his hand more tightly. "You're not alone."

He smiled at her, weakly, and said, "Thank you."

And as she could do nothing but watch his breathing grow more and more uneven, she felt her heart breaking.

* * *

><p>There was no way it was three hours. It happened so quickly that it just couldn't be that much time. She kept talking, to keep both their minds occupied, but he stopped responding after a while, still breathing but dancing around the edges of consciousness.<p>

When the labored, wheezing sounds finally stopped, Lucy let go of his hand and let the tears that had already been rolling down her cheeks flow even more freely, her frame racked with sobs that she hadn't wanted to release while he could still hear her.

His eyes were already closed, and he looked peaceful. He had been waiting for this for three years, she had to remind herself. He hadn't harbored any hope, just waiting for the inevitable, but still carried on, living and working.

"You're the strongest man I've ever met", she told him. "And you won't be forgotten."

Maybe that was her role in all of this. The reason she'd landed in this particular world, which was dying and fading into oblivion, without anybody to remember them, no one shedding a tear after they were gone. She was still here. She could remember. And she would. She promised herself that she'd tell their story, set up some sort of memorial for them.

It took a while for her to calm her crying enough to finally stand up, giving Gray one last look. Despite all the similarities he wasn't the same person as the Gray she knew at all. Their lifes' experiences shaped who they were. She sniffled one last time and then went out the door. The sun was low on the horizon, and as she looked around, she couldn't find the salamander anywhere.

Maybe it knew that his friend was gone, and had left because there was nothing here for him, anymore.

The same was true for her. As she felt the magic gather in her hand, it felt a lot more stable than it had before, more ready to do what she wanted it to and not just what it had decided on its own. She did her best to think of home, concentrated on the people, the smells, the places, and then drew her hand in a wide arc in front of her. She looked back at the little farmhouse and the creaking windmill only once, and then stepped through the portal that would take her to another world.

* * *

><p>She immediately found herself in the middle of a throng of people, none of whom paid any attention at all to the fact that a girl had just appeared from thin air right next to them, because they were all too busy screaming and pushing each other to get closer to a blonde girl standing not far from them, signing autographs with a sort of condescending smile on her face.<p>

A face that was covered in way too much make up, complimented by ridiculously fluffed up blonde hair.

A face that was quite undoubtedly that of Lucy herself underneath.

* * *

><p>AN: I usually don't do this, but if you're interested in the soundtrack that was inspirational for this chapter, check out "The Way Back Home" from the Wreckers, which is the title inspiration for this whole fic and "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" by Green Day.

Also if you have good ideas for AUs featuring the Fairy Tail characters, keep them coming. I have several chapters already planned out, but I'm always open for ideas.

So, tell me what you think!


	3. Famous for Nothing

Chapter 3 - Famous for Nothing

A/N: Thanks so much for your reviews, I'm so happy about your response, and of course you've earned yourself another chapter. An incredibly long one, too, that made me doubt my resolve of not splitting the world's stories across mutiple chapters, but well…

I actually meant to post this yesterday, but I had to get up early today to film an operation (power tools vs hip bones. Orthopedics are fun!). This is unbetaed, too, because my brother had to study. Hope you enjoy it, anyway!

* * *

><p>Seeing the arrogant look on her counterpart's face made Lucy suddenly appreciate Lucy Ashley a lot more. Im comparison the short tempered sadist seemed like someone you'd still rather get to know.<p>

Not that any of the people around Lucy would agree. They were screaming her name, waving pictures of her and all sorts of things at her to sign, and all seemed close to a heart attack just from being in her presence. It was quite disconcerting, actually.

It took Lucy a moment to notice that her counterpart wasn't alone. Next to her, looking, if possible, even more arrogant, was no other than Hibiki.

It had always been Lucy's opinion that the Trimens of Blue Pegasus were too overly styled, payed too much attention to their appearance and sweet talking. Lucy much preferred guys to be authentic, 'real men' as Elfamn would put it. Well, in comparison to this Hibiki the group of womanizers were looking completely natural, almost as if they were neglecting their appearance.

But no one in the crowd seemed to be sharing her disdain for his appearance. They were just as taken with him as they were with her. He had an arm slung around other-Lucy's shoulder, and Lucy got the distinct impression that they were a couple, but that didn't stop any of the fans from screaming that they wanted to bear his child. Not that either of them looked particularly bothered by that.

So once again Lucy was in a different world, and it would probably be a good idea to find some people that could help her while she was stuck here, but she decided quite quickly that it wouldn't be these two.

She disentangled herself from the crowd which was pretty easy considering everyone else was eager to take her spot, and then stood a little further away, trying to get her bearings. She was on a rather big street in a pretty town. There were no cars around, just some people walking by the crowd, some of them looking puzzled, others excited as they realized what all the commotion was about.

Lucy decided to walk down the street and get a little further away from the celebrities. She felt a little lost as to what to do, but at least she wasn't stuck in a seemingly endless desert this time. So that was a plus.

She spotted a bar not far from the crowd, that looked pretty inviting. Something about it reminded her of Fairy Tail, even though she couldn't put her finger on what it was, exactly. But, seeing as she didn't have any other plans, she went inside. Maybe if she looked pitiful enough she could score some free water. It wasn't that she didn't have any money with her, she had 30000 jewels, in fact, almost half her rent, but somehow she doubted she could just pay with that.

The bar looked homey, and was mostly empty, thanks to it being late afternoon. There was a brunette sitting at one of the tables in the corner, staring wistfully at her wine glass, who somehow reminded Lucy of Cana, but she couldn't get a good look at her face from this angle. At another table there was two guys playing cards, and one sleeping man was slumped over another table.

At the bar there was a guy with light brown hair polishing glasses. Lucy went over there and sat down at the bar, the way she would've if this was Fairy Tail with Mira at the bar.

"Hey", she said. "How much is a glass of water?"

"Sparkling, or just regular tab water?", he asked, putting the glass back on its shelf.

"Just tab."

"That's free", he said with a laugh and went to fill up a glass for her. As he handed it to her he looked at her for the first time, and froze.

"What?", she asked, confused. She'd just spent a week in the desert and quite recently crying her eyes out, but surely she didn't look that terrible. Or did she?

"Uh… sorry, it's just…", he said, putting the glass down in front of her, without breaking eye contact. "I'm sure you get that a lot, but you look just like her."

"Like who?", Lucy asked. She probably could've figured it out based on what had happened earlier, but she was busy trying to figure out who the bartender reminded her of.

"Her", he said, and nodded towards a glowing screen that was attached in one of the corners of the bar. It was showing an image of that Lucy twirling in front of a pink background, and then drawing a heart in the air, that stayed on the screen, while the word 'Lu' appeared in handwriting above it. That image was replaced by a scene of her talking to some people, captioned 'last time on Lu'

She honestly didn't know what to make of that. Was her alternate self an actress? But then why was the name of the program her name? She turned back to the bartender, and suddenly recognized him.

It was embarrassing that it had taken her this long, to be honest. Looking at her with sort of a wistful look was none other than Natsu. Brown haired Natsu, whose hair wasn't quite as spiky as her Natsu's, but still, squinty eyes, teeth just a little sharper than they were supposed to be. This was her favorite dragon slayer, without a doubt.

Except that his eye brows weren't pink, which was for some reason the most off putting difference, and she had the impression that this world would be light on dragons.

It took her a moment before she could speak again. "Why is she on there?"

"Cause it's her reality show", he said, gazing at the screen a little sadly.

"Reality show?"

"You know, where they follow a famous person with cameras, to show what their lives are like", he explained.

"And who is she?" Scoring free water off him and then using him for information was probably not quite the nicest course of action, but he didn't seem to mind.

"She's Lucy Hart, the singer." He let out a sigh and ran a hand through his hair before he said, "Also happens to be my ex."

Lucy was so glad that she hadn't been drinking when he said that, because she knew it would've ended in a spit take. As it was she had trouble not falling off her chair, but he thankfully didn't notice because he still kept gazing at the screen, which was showing Lucy Hart laughing with her arm around Hibiki.

So she'd stumbled upon a reality where she was a famous singer, had a film crew follow her, and she had once dated Natsu, but was now dating Hibiki…

_What the hell?_

"What happened?", she asked, in the most sympathetic tone she could muster while still reeling from that information. Maybe he wouldn't want to tell her, but damn it, she was curious.

"It's sort of a long story", he said, looking down at the counter sort of side ways, a cute look for him. Not that she'd ever consider Natsu cute. Except for Edo Natsu when he wasn't talking about pervy things, maybe.

"I have time", Lucy said, and raised her glass of water in a toast to him.

"Well…" for a moment she thought he wouldn't answer, but then he took a deep breath and continued, "I have a band. We're called The Fairy's Tail, maybe you've heard of us…?" he trailed off sort of hopefully. She shook her head apologetically.

"Yeah, no one has. Anyway, Lu and I were friends for a really long time, and we started dating after a while. She was the lead singer, and she was really talented, I could always feel we were going places…"

"Anyway, she had this gig singing demo tapes, for famous people to get to know the songs other people had written. And there was one where she sung the female part of a duet with the band Trimens." At her questioning look he clarified, "they're this really popular pop band, and Hibiki, the dude she's with in the show, he's their lead singer. Well, the singer who was supposed to be in the studio with them didn't show up, had a mental breakdown, or something, went into rehab ages ago… well, but they wanted to record their song, and someone just came up with the idea of having Lucy sing it, cause she already did so well in the demo."

He had a far away look in his eyes as he told the story. "It became a hit, and overnight, Lucy was famous. I was so happy for her, I mean this was what we always dreamed of. I mean we'd sort of been hoping to make it together, but I didn't mind, because she was just so happy."

He let out a sigh. "And then they came up with the idea of the reality show. Show Lucy to the world, tell a sort of rags to riches story, how she suddenly got famous. And she agreed, because it meant more publicity, and she was just starting out. But then they said it would be an even better show if she was dating Hibiki in the show. We talked about it, and she said it was just for show, only when the cameras were there. I didn't like the idea, but I said yes, anyway, because it meant so much to her. And I trusted her."

"And then two weeks later she broke up with me. On the phone." Lucy had never seen Natsu look so dejected, and decided it just wasn't a good look for him. Natsu needed to be upbeat and energetic, not heartbroken.

"That bitch!", Lucy exclaimed before she could stop herself. It was obvious from the hurt look in his eyes that he was anything but over her. But really, throwing away a relationship in the pursuit of fame? Lucy couldn't think of a worse thing.

"That's what my friends say, too", he said with slumped shoulders.

"But you're still in love with her." It wasn't a question.

He nodded weakly. "Is it so obvious?" The heartbroken look on his face made him look more pitiful than Edo Natsu.

"Anyway, I'm doing this wrong, aren't I?", he suddenly piped up. "The bartender thing, you should be telling me about your troubles, not the other way around. So, what brings you here with a huge sunburn asking for tap water?"

For a moment Lucy could only blink at the rapid topic change, but then looked down at her arms. Sunburned, indeed. After the first day in the desert she really hadn't payed any attention anymore, but Apocalypse-Gray hadn't had any sunblock, and it showed.

"Well, short version, I sort of got stranded here with no money, and I don't know anybody here. Not sure how I'm gonna pay for a hotel, either…" The thought had just occurred to Lucy. In Edolas she'd just stayed at their Fairy Tail as a matter of course, and since it was the only house around staying with Gray had been sort of obvious in the last world, but here…

"If I let you crash at my place, do I get the long version?", he asked, with a grin that reminded her so much of when he'd invited her to join Fairy Tail back in their world, that it took her breath away for a moment. It also made her feel a little bit homesick. But she grinned, anyway.

"If I can take a shower, too, you'll get the longest you ever heard."

"Okay, deal", he said, holding out his hand. Lucy shook it with a grin. Why he'd just invite a complete stranger to stay with him, she didn't quite understand. If she'd been in his situation inviting her wouldn't have even occurred to her. But then again, it was Natsu. If things could be simple, why choose to complicate them?

"By the way, I'm Nate", he said, picking up a new glass to polish.

"Uh… Layla", she said. It was the first name that occurred to her. It would probably be extremely weird to tell him that she didn't just look exactly like his ex but also had the same name. Then again, she'd promised to tell him the long story… well, she'd figure something out.

"So, Layla, time for a long story?", he said, leaning over the counter. He caught sight of the clock on the wall, and jumped back abruptly. "Ah crap, I'm late!", he suddenly declared.

"Late for what?"

"Gotta go. Jenny, I need to leave", he yelled at someone, a woman standing pretty far away who reminded Lucy of someone, and waved at Natsu… _Nate _with a smile.

"Your shift's been over for twenty minutes!" she replied.

He grabbed a jacket from somewhere beneath the bar, and before Lucy had the chance to ask what was up, he was already out the door, leaving her sitting at the bar, blinking a few times.

"Uh…" she said to the empty air. So much for her place to crash, then… Suddenly he burst back through the door. "You're supposed to come with me", he said, and grabbed her hand.

* * *

><p>"Hey guys!", Nate greeted as he opened the door to the basement room. Lucy followed him, not sure what to expect. He'd explained that he was late and then just run like hell, which made Lucy to winded trying to keep up to ask any further questions.<p>

"You're late!" a familiar voice declared, and Lucy saw a fully clothed Gray tuning a bass.

"I know, sorry, guys", Nate said. "Anyway, I brought a friend to listen, is that cool?"

_Oh, band practice_, Lucy realized. The room was packed full of music equipment, a little too much for the space, but that made it sort of homely. The walls were decorated with all sorts of posters, only a few inches were left uncovered, and that was for the best because the bare concrete wall wasn't pretty.

"Nate! You're supposed to get over her, not get a new girlfriend that looks exactly like her. That's the opposite of moving on", Gray scolded him.

"She's not my girlfriend, she just needs a place to crash", Nate explained, as he picked up an electric guitar that was red with painted on flames. Figures.

"Uh huh, and how long have you known her?", Gray asked with raised eyebrows. Nate mumbled something unintelligible.

"Shut up, Gary, maybe she's here to audition", a different voice said, and Lucy saw that Gajeel was sitting behind the drums twirling a metal drumstick between his fingers. His outfit was a lot more normal than his regular one, but the weird studs and long hair remained. "Please tell me you're here to audition", he said, turning towards Lucy.

"Oh hey, good idea", Nate said, his face brightening. "Oh by the way, guys this is Layla, Layla these are Gary and Gaj. Well actually his name is George, but we call him Gaj" they both nodded in greeting, and Lucy smiled at them, trying to drill the names into her head. Gray being called Gary? How was she supposed to not mess that up?

"What do you mean audition?", Lucy asked.

"Well, ever since Lu left we haven't had a lead singer, and there was only one answer to our ad, and well…"

Before Nate could get any further in his explanation, the door behind Lucy opened, and someone forcefully strode in. Lucy didn't need any time to recognize the flaming red hair as Erza's.

"Oh hey Elsa", Nate greeted, sounding almost but not quite casual. Apparently Erza was scary in any dimension. Even when being called Elsa. Were they just doing this to mess with Lucy's head?

"Who's that?", Erza asked, pointing a thumb toward Lucy without actually looking at her.

"Another applicant", Gray said. "So we can finally have a proper audition."

"Wait, what?", Lucy asked.

"Well, you know, since Elsa here was the only applicant to the spot before we couldn't have proper audition, cause you need more people for that, but now that you're here we can have a real audition", Nate said with a huge smile, the two others nodding along as if that made any sense.

Erza… no, Elsa stared Lucy up and down, sizing her up and then let out a snort. "So you're my enemy, huh? I will defeat you!"

It was a lot to be said for how much Lucy had grown as a person since joining Fairy Tail, seeing how she resisted the urge to hide behind Nate and yell 'I'm sorry'. She held her ground. Sort of.

"I can't sing", she hissed at Nate.

"Don't worry", he said. "We'll sing the song once, so you know it, and then we can do the audition." Gary handed her a sheet with the lyrics, which Elsa apparently didn't need, because she looked on in disdain.

"Okay, guys? One, two, three…" They started playing, and Lucy was surprised to find that they were pretty good. Really good, to be honest. Natsu was singing for purposes of showing them, and he was much better than Lucy would ever have expected. If it was a property of this other world that Natsu had talent, or if he did in her world, too, Lucy wasn't sure.

The song itself wasn't bad, either. And looking at Gaj, who was completely lost in his drumming and Gary and Natsu who were both moving their fingers over their fretboards with a level of dexterity that Lucy hadn't expected, she couldn't help but wonder why they weren't famous yet. They were good.

Looking at Elsa, she also had to wonder why they hadn't yet replaced their lead singer. She looked amazing. Of course Erza always did, she could look menacing in armors that sported cat ears, for crying out loud. This Erza… Elsa, was wearing torn jeans, a tight fitting t-shirt with faded print, her hair done up in a casual pony tail that was probably not nearly as accidental as it appeared. She looked every bit the rock star.

Lucy would definitely buy their music lacrima if she could. And maybe rub Gajeel's nose in the fact that he wasn't the lead singer once she was back in her own world. Though she was pretty sure that with his gravelly voice the band could sound amazing, too. So what was the point of this entire audition thing?

Once they were done, Lucy couldn't help clapping enthusiastically. Elsa just "tch"ked at her and then went to stand behind the microphone which Nate quickly scrambled away from.

As they started playing the song once more, they looked like the perfect rock band. Three handsome guys, a gorgeous singer and a song that sounded so authentic, what could go wrong?

And then Elsa opened her mouth.

And why they hadn't just accepted her as their singer when she'd answered their ad became abundantly clear.

She was terrible. Lucy wasn't big into music, but even she could hear that the notes were all over the place and nowhere near the actual melody. As they reached the chorus Gary mouthed "Save us" at Lucy, which thankfully wasn't noticed by the enthusiastic singer. Lucy felt herself painfully reminded of their brief foray into the performing arts when stage fright had crippled Erza. The realization was strange to Lucy, but apparently there were just some things that Erza, with all her competence and power couldn't do.

It was really only the fear of bodily harm that stopped Lucy from putting her fingers in her ears. She noticed that all of the boys were playing louder than before, in an attempt to drown out the atrocious singing, but it didn't really help.

When the song ended, Elsa fixed Lucy with a death glare and said, "Feel free to clap."

Refusing a direct order from Erza wasn't something that Lucy was all that adept at, yet, so she brought her hands together in three unenthusiastic claps. Oddly that seemed to placate the 'singer' as she stepped away from the microphone.

"Your turn", she said, once again giving Lucy a once over. That girl was beginning to make her feel self conscious, not that she wasn't already with her disheveled appearance.

At leas she'd been able to remember the rhythm of the song. But as she stood in front of the microphone which looked much more intimidating up close, she got incredibly nervous. Her only singing was done in the shower, only when she was a hundred percent certain that no one was listening (so, basically, never). It was only three people listening, and if she was terrible it wasn't a big disaster, but still…

Nate counted out the rhythm again, and even gave her an encouraging nod when it was her cue to start singing. She kept her eyes glued to the sheet music when she started, because she didn't want to see the other's reactions.

But after two verses no one had stopped her yet, and she was sort of getting into it. The song was fun, the band was good, and Lucy always had fun trying out new things.

She started swaying to the music and chanced a glance over to Natsu… _Nate_, and found him smiling at her. Maybe she wasn't so bad after all.

After the song was done, Gary immediately exclaimed, "Layla won! Sorry, Elsa, thanks for coming in." Again, both other band members nodded emphatically.

Elsa took a step towards Lucy who was still standing behind the microphone, clutching the sheet music, that probably wouldn't do anything at all to protect her. If looks could kill… Lucy could almost feel how her skin would melt away from her bones if looks in fact could do that.

"Fine!", Elsa harrumphed, breaking the moment and stalking out of the basement with her head held high. Lucy released a breath she didn't know she'd been holding. As she turned towards the boys she found all three of them grinning widely.

"So… you don't _actually_ want me to be in your band, do you?", Lucy asked.

"Well, if you want to be a singer, the offer stands, but we mostly needed a good excuse to get rid of Elsa", Gary admitted sheepishly. "But, you weren't bad, with a little bit of practice…"

"Thanks", Lucy said. Was she blushing or was that just her imagination. "But I don't think I'm cut out for a music career."

"Well, if you change your mind…" Natsu said with a grin. "Anyway, thanks for the save."

"You could have just told her no."

"Yeah… have you seen that girl? She's scary", Nate said, scratching the back of his head. And Lucy really couldn't disagree with that.

_I beat Erza, _she thought with a grin. Once she got home she'd definitely tell this story.

* * *

><p>She spent the rest of the practice sitting on the stairs leading to the basement listening to the band. They really were pretty good, the songs were varied and fun, some more serious some not, but overall a good combination.<p>

Nate kept his promise to let Lucy crash at his place, and as they left the rehearsal space she found out that he shared an apartment with his band mates.

"So you're all living together, all the time?", she asked as they reached the house.

"It's cheaper like that", Gaj explained. They passed a sign next to the door, that said _Nathan Drake, Gary Fuller and George Redfox_. Well at least one of them had kept his proper last name.

"Your name's Nathan?", Lucy asked while Nate was fiddling with the keys.

"Yeah", he said self consciously. "I don't like it, but I have to have it on the door, cause otherwise I don't get any of the letters my mom sends me, and if I don't answer she gets psychotic."

"Don't make any 'your mom' jokes about Nate", Gary cautioned her. "Woman could rip your arms off."

"Yeah, she's like a dragon", Gaj said. They were climbing the stairs in the apartment building, now. Of course they just had to live on the top floor.

"Why do they call you Gaj, anyway?", Lucy inquired.

"Cause when my sister was little, she couldn't say George, so she said Gaj. Sort of stuck."

As he pushed open the door to the apartment, Lucy belatedly thought of how Natsu's house back home looked. Her hopes that this would be any tidier turned out to be in vain, when she got into a hallway that was covered in sheet music, shoes haparzardly thrown around some other items of dirty clothing.

Lucy tried her best not to show her distaste, since they were kind enough to take her in, but this alone made her hope her magic regenerated a bit faster so she could get out of this world.

She almost tripped over a cat as she entered. It was grey with a white belly, and while it really wasn't similar to her favorite Exceed, the look on its face somehow reminded her of him.

"Who is this?", she asked.

"That's Nate's cat. Harpy", Gary said, depositing his jacket on a coat hanger that was hanging dangerously crooked.

"Harpy?"

"Yeah, sounds intimidating, doesn't it? She's totally dangerous", Nate declared proudly.

"Are you sure it's a she?", Lucy asked. Not that she knew a lot about cat's genders, but if this was the alternate Happy, it would probably be a guy. An how was she supposed to remember that it wasn't Happy, but Harpy, anyway? They probably were doing this just to annoy her, weren't they?

"Huh? It's a cat, cats are girls", Nate said, bending down to pick up his furry friend. Lucy was pretty sure there was evidence to the contrary in between its hind legs, but she didn't want to stare. Out of respect for Happy, mostly.

"Not all cats are girls", Lucy said, not sure if he was pulling her leg or actually thought that. "How do you think kittens are made?"

"Uh…" apparently the thought had never occurred to him. "Dunno, maybe they lay eggs or something?" There was a snort from Gary, while Lucy could just gape at him. She would've yelled at his idiocy if it weren't for the fact that she knew a race of cat like creatures that did exactly that. The coincidence left her speechless for a moment.

"Don't try to reason with him, your head might explode", Gary recommended.

"Hey, what's that supposed to mean?"

"That you're an idiot."

"Well you're more… idioter…"

"And there my point stands, proven!", Gray declared with a smirk. "Anyway, over there is my room, next to that is Gaj's, and here's the living room, with the kitchen. Nate's room is down there. You can either sleep in his room" a waggle of his eyebrows accompanied that sentence, "or you can sleep on the couch."

"Couch, please", Lucy squeaked, blushing at the insinuation.

"Through here", he instructed, and she followed into the living room, which was filled with even more crap than the hallway. One of the trash heaps was even glowing. And moving, she realized at second glance.

"It's moving!", she shrieked, and jumped behind Gary, who started laughing. "Right, forgot to mention that particular piece of furniture."

"It's not furniture", Nate argued as he entered the room, Harpy perched on his head. "More like a machine where you put food in and get high scores out of it."

Lucy stared at both of them as though they were insane. It was a very familiar feeling.

"Let me demonstrate", Gaj said with a chuckle. "Honey! I'm home!" he shouted in a booming voice, that startled Lucy again. The heap of trash moved a little, a box of something dropping off, to reveal that it wasn't a trash heap at all, but rather a blue haired girl sitting in front of a glowing screen, her eyes fixated on it.

"Hm", she replied without even looking his way.

"That's Levy, Gaj's girlfriend. She probably has an apartment of her own, but we're not sure. She hasn't moved from that spot in about two weeks, though", Gary explained and went over to the kitchen part of the room. Natsu had turned on the lights, and now the trash heaps didn't look nearly as intimidating anymore.

To her great relief the couch looked perfectly normal, if a little battered.

"What is she doing?", Lucy wanted to know.

"Gaming. She's very concentrated", Gaj explained. "Yesterday we had a contest of who could throw the must junk at her without her noticing. Most of it's still there, and I'm not sure she even knows."

"Shouldn't you be treating your girlfriend with a little more respect?"

"And become a whiny pushover like Nate?", he asked with a snort. The "Hey!" from the kitchen went ignored by everybody. "Nah, I treat her well enough while she notices. Right now it would just be a waste of effort."

Lucy raised an eyebrow, but decided to let it slide. If Levy, thankfully someone who had kept her name, wasn't complaining then Lucy guessed there was no point trying to fix her relationship. Not sticking her nose in other people's business was a little difficult for her, but traveling all these different worlds she knew she couldn't possibly fix all of their problems.

"So, who wants pizza?", Natsu asked, pushing something which Lucy had never seen before into the oven.

"Everybody wants pizza, dumbass. It's pizza", Gary said, rolling his eyes.

"No need to get all huffy, Gary", Nate said, unimpressed. Lucy was impressed, actually. While she had no idea what they were talking about (Pizza, what sort of weird word was that, anyway?), she just knew that if that exchange had happened at her world's Fairy Tail, fists would be flying already.

"Yes!" the trash heap suddenly declared, and Levy emerged with shining eyes, fist raised to the sky as she climbed onto her desk. "The divine sword of Etherion is mine, now! Bow before me, peasants!"

Lucy blinked a few times.

"Oh, hi", Levy suddenly said, demeanor changing into one that was much more familiar to Lucy. "Did I hear someone say Pizza?" None of the others looked at all surprised by the bluenette's outburst while Lucy felt more than a little out of the loop.

"What sword?", she asked, confused.

"It's not a real sword she's just doing well at her game", Gary clarified. Which led to him having a blue haired ball of fury at his throat almost immediately after.

"It's not just a game", Levy hissed. "It's a way of life. And if I ever hear you badmouthing it again, I will have Gaj stick one of his ridiculous metal drumsticks up your butt, am I making myself clear."

"Perfectly", Gary squeaked, eyes wide.

"They're not ridiculous. They're my thing", Gaj complained.

"It's not a thing, they're just loud", Levy said with a raised eyebrows.

"Being loud is a thing", Gaj grumbled, while Nate was laughing at both his roommates with glee. Levy shot him a look and he held his hands up pleadingly. "Don't attack me, I have the pizza."

Which was apparently a good enough argument for her. She turned around to face Lucy, who felt sweat break out on her skin, but was surprised to find a perfectly innocent smile on the gaming addict's face. "Hi, I'm Levy. Nice to meet you", she said, holding out her hand.

Lucy shook it. "Layla. Pleasure's all mine."

"So are you Nate's replacement girlfriend? You look almost exactly like the old one, just poorer."

"I'm not his girlfriend. I just needed a place to stay, and he offered."

"Yeah, he's dumb like that", Levy said with a sigh. "Not that I don't like you, or anything."

"Pizza's done!" Nate yelled out before Lucy could quite figure out how she was supposed to that statement. Everyone eagerly crowded into the kitchen, and Lucy followed slightly less eagerly. Natsu was just dividing a large circle of… something into triangular pieces. Lucy couldn't help staring at it distastefully.

"What is that?", she asked, as one of the pieces was handed to her. Greasy…

"Pepperoni", Gary explained. "What, don't you like that?"

"Uh… I mean the whole thing, a pi… something?"

Four pairs of eyes glued themselves to her incredulously. Even the cat, that was hanging from the ceiling lamp (How on earth had it gotten up there) looked at her like she was insane.

"Pizza. Don't tell me you've never had pizza before?", Gary asked, the first to regain his powers of speech.

"Uh… no", Lucy replied. Maybe she should have just manned up and eaten the weird concoction, rather than face their stares, but… it was dripping grease. Were they serious about eating that?

Levy grinned at her. "Well then, be prepared for your life to change."

"I… sort of like my life the way it was."

"Without pizza? How can a life without pizza be worth living?", Natsu asked incredulously.

"Just try it", Levy encouraged. Lucy really didn't want to, but all of them were looking at her so expectantly that she didn't know how to refuse. So, hesitantly she raised the piece to her mouth, prepared for it being completely disgusting.

When she bit down on it, she dimly realized that she was probably selling her soul to the devil, knowing how greasy and sort of disgusting this thing was. But tasting one of the most divine things she'd ever known, she just couldn't bring herself to care.

She had to find a way to bring this back to Fiore.

* * *

><p>After dinner Nate had reminded Lucy of her promise to tell her long story, she'd told them. She briefly contemplated making something up, but it had been a long day, and she didn't know enough about this world to come up with anything even remotely believable. So she decided to stick with the truth which didn't even border on being believable in the slightest.<p>

Sitting on the couch surrounded by the band plus Levy she'd told her story, all of them listening carefully. They didn't interrupt her, but she couldn't interpret what the looks on their faces meant.

After she was done, she looked around at them expectantly.

"So… what were you on when you came up with that story?", Gaj said, after a few moments of silence. "Cause I want it."

"If they turn that world you 'come from' into an MMO, I'll totally sign up for the public beta", Levy declared, which earned her a blank look from Lucy. Seriously, what did any of those words even mean?

"Well Nate, you sure know how to pick 'em. A selfish bitch with no loyalty and now an escaped mental patient", Gary said, patting Nate on the shoulders.

"But, in both cases, nice rack", Levy commented. Sweet innocent cute little Levy. Said that. The stare Lucy was giving her in response didn't help refute Gary's theory.

"Yeah", everyone agreed, looking sort of wistful. Lucy snatched the cat and held it in front of her to stop them looking.

"I believe her", Nate said with a cute Natsu-like smile on his face.

* * *

><p>In the end they'd had a vote to decide whether or not Lucy should stay, and Lucy had won by offering to clean the apartment and take care of chores. It actually wasn't such a bad deal, because she benefited from the apartment being cleaner, too.<p>

It had taken a while, but she'd found a place for everything, generously thrown stuff away, and as a result it looked both nicer and much bigger.

She'd discovered that Nate had the same sort of memory wall that Natsu did, and she'd seen a lot of pictures of him and the other Lucy, when she had looked much more down to earth, and genuinely happy unlike she ever did in her 'reality show'. Everyone told him to stop (Even Lucy had started chiming in) but Nate insisted on watching every episode, and her music was on in his room non stop at least until one of the guys yelled at him for it. It usually started up again about half an hour later.

It wasn't bad, really, even though the lyrics seemed a bit flat to Lucy. Her counterpart really was talented.

Lucy was just on her way back from the grocery store. The band plus Levy had introduced her to the concept of junk food, which was incredibly good, and would probably ruin her life if she wasn't careful. So she'd decided to buy ingredients to cook something healthy, then spent half an hour begging Gaj to give her some money for that (which had worked surprisingly well after Levy poked his stomach and called him chubby). Now she was on her way back from the store, relishing the opportunity to see more of the town she'd been living in for the past 4 days.

It honestly wasn't the sort of situation in which she'd expected to be abducted.

"There you are, my honey", she suddenly heard someone say, and before she had any idea on how to react she'd already been pulled into the white limousine and found herself sitting next to Ichiya, or some variant of him, anyway. "We've been looking all over for you, don't just go and get lost."

She didn't have any chance to explain to him that he was mistaken before the car started up. Almost immediately he started talking into a little device and completely ignored her presence, even as she was waving frantically to try and get his attention.

When they arrived at their destination, some sort of studio from the looks of it, not that she had any time to look at it, she was immediately swarmed by a bunch of people, all talking at her. None of them listened to her protests, someone tried to powder her face before she turned away, and then in a flutter of chatter and limbs she was pushed into a dressing room and the door closed behind her.

Blinking a few times she tried to understand what had just happened. She had valiantly protected her groceries, and was now standing in Lucy Hart's dressing room which was almost as big as Lucy's apartment back in Magnolia. Still clutching a back of groceries.

Really where had her life picked up this penchant for being weird?

Suddenly the door was yanked open and then slammed shut again. Lucy turned around to find her counterpart with her back pressed against the door, sinking down, sobbing.

Lucy just stood there, not saying anything. She sort of wished she hadn't had the idea of eating healthy food, because then this wouldn't have happened.

"Who the hell are you?", Lucy Hart shrieked when she noticed Lucy standing there. Her shrill voice hurt Lucy's ears. "Get the hell out of my dressing room, I'm not giving any interviews without my manager present!", she shrieked. Was this what Lucy sounded like when she discovered other people in her apartment? How annoying.

"Yeah, I don't really know the people here, but I'm pretty sure that guy mistook me for you and pushed me in here. It wasn't my idea, I was just trying to bring the groceries home. And then your crazy people abducted me."

"What?", Lucy Hart asked with a glare, still sitting at the door.

"I was out grocery shopping and a guy with a limousine pulled me in, and no one would listen to me when I told them I wasn't you." Lucy held up her bag of groceries for evidence. Some of that needed to be refrigerated.

The starlet blinked a few times. "So that's why that director's assistant looked at me so weird when I came in. You do look like me."

"Yeah, I've gotten that a lot, recently", Lucy admitted. "But he might've looked at you all weird cause you're crying and your mascara does not look waterproof."

Lucy Hart groaned, but made no move to get up off the floor. "Well, fantastic. I got a big interview in half an hour, and now I look like a raccoon."

"Is that really the most important thing right now?", Lucy asked, scooting down in front of the diva.

"What could be more important than looks?", Lucy Hart asked with a bitter tone to her voice.

"Why were you crying?"

"I'm not telling you anything! You're probably just some gossip hag who snuck in", Lucy Hart shrieked. Weren't singers supposed to rest their voice a little more.

"No, I'm not. I'm… well that's actually sort of a long story." And that was beginning to feel like her catch phrase.

"I don't have time for long stories, give the the cliff notes."

"Well, I'm your counterpart from a magical parallel world and I'm stuck traveling alternate realities right now until I find the way home."

Her mouth gaping open was not the pop star's best look. Maybe Lucy should tell her that for future reference. And remember it herself, since they shared the same face.

"The short version didn't make any sense."

"Yeah", Lucy admitted with a sigh. "The long version's not that much better. Now come on, get up. We need to pretty you up before your big interview." She offered the starlet a hand, which she reluctantly took. Lucy pulled her up and then led her to one of many lit mirrors lining the walls, and busied herself getting the mascara smudges off.

"So, why were you crying?"

Lucy Hart looked at Lucy with an uncertain look. She wanted to talk, she just didn't know whether she could really trust Lucy. Wow, she was really good at reading herself, considering she only saw her own face in the mirror.

"I promise I'm not going to tell anyone. I'm really not from the press, and I'm really good about keeping promises. And you look like you need someone to talk."

The pop star let out a sigh. "I hate this. There, I finally said it out loud. I didn't want to admit it to myself, but I do."

"What do you mean?"

"All this… insanity. All the suck ups and all this fake crap… I made a mistake. I thought I really wanted this, but it's just… nothing's real. Nobody talks to me because they care, or because they want to get to know me, they're just trying to figure out a way to use me."

Lucy didn't comment, but she knew the feeling pretty well. Back when she'd still been the rich daughter of the Heartfilia company there was barely anyone who talked to her who didn't have an agenda.

"I always dreamed of being a star, I did everything I could to get here, and now… People know me on the street, I can hear my songs when I turn on the radio, and that's amazing, but then I feel all alone in a crowd of hundreds, and then I just think _this is it?_ Am I being ungrateful? I mean, my mom and I always dreamed of this together and now she's not there to see it anymore, so I feel like I just be doing this for her, so why am I not happy?"

"Because money and fame don't have anything to do with happiness, and the people who have both are incredibly rare. Or lying to themselves", Lucy said as she moved to reapply her counterpart's make up.

"How would you know?" Well she claimed not to like that world, but the inherent arrogance of it seemed to have seeped through pretty quickly.

"I used to be rich, and I was never free to do as I pleased, never happy, and then I ran away. Best decision I ever made. I have money problems sometimes, but I met some of the nicest and most genuine people I've ever known, and found real friends."

"So what, I'm just supposed to give up everything I've worked for, is that what you're saying?"

"No", Lucy said. She was rather proud of the shade of eye shadow she'd picked out. Looked much better on her counterpart than all the make up she'd so far seen her wear. "But if you're nor happy with the way things are, change them. If you don't like being pushed around by these people, then stop letting them."

"I can't. If I don't do what they say I could lose everything. I just tried to go outside by myself today for a few hours and they searched the city for me. Found you, apparently."

"Why did you break up with Nate?", Lucy suddenly asked on a whim.

"How do you know that?" Lucy Hart pushed herself away from the mirror, staring at Lucy with wide eyes. "It wasn't in the press, nobody knows that."

"Because he told me. He's the most genuinely nice guy I know, and he's still pining over you. The pictures in his room looked like you were happy together, so why throw that away when everything here is making you so unhappy?"

The starlet didn't say anything for a moment, and turned her face away.

"Don't tell me you fell in love with Hibiki?"

"Hibiki's gay. But our manager thinks it would be bad for his band's appeal if people knew, so he has to fake-date somebody", Lucy Hart explained. She suddenly whipped her head around to look back Lucy. "Don't tell the press!"

"I won't. But I'll ask again, why did you break Nate's heart?" Her counterpart flinched at the word choice.

"Because it felt wrong. It was only for the cameras, but kissing Hibiki, pretending to be in love with him… I felt like I was cheating on Nate the entire time, and I barely got to see him, even though I missed him. And I thought playing the part would be easier if I didn't have a boyfriend waiting for me. I didn't want Nate to be my 'dirty little secret'. He's a great guy, he deserves better than that."

So maybe not quite as selfish as Lucy had initially thought. Totally stupid, sure, but maybe Lucy Hart's heart was in the right place after all.

"You're right. He does deserve better. But he still wants you."

* * *

><p>Lucy loved being a man with a plan. Not that she was a man, but it just sounded so much better in her head with the rhyme. Elfman would approve.<p>

As she strode purposefully into the apartment later that evening, ridiculously proud of the fact that all her groceries had survived, she felt that elating feeling of plannedness that she'd been missing ever since she'd been blown out into the worlds. It felt damn good.

"Nate!", she called out, and he turned around on his chair where he'd been watching Levy play her game.

"Yeah?", he asked, looking a little puzzled at the intense look Lucy was shooting him.

"Are you still in love with Lucy Hart? Do you want to get back together with her?" His mouth hung slightly open. Gary, who'd been sitting on the couch reading, looked up, and even Levy tilted her head slightly to listen in. "Think about your answer closely, because she really doesn't deserve you."

"M…maybe you're right, but… I still love her. Nothing I can do about that." She hadn't been expecting a different answer. If Natsu was one thing, then it was loyal to a fault. Getting rid of him as a boyfriend required more than a phone call.

"Then I will get the two of you back together."

* * *

><p>Even if it might not work, Lucy would never regret working on this plan. It was just so much fun. Really, she felt like her contribution wasn't that big, but it was maybe the most important part. They had called their band the Fairy's Tail, but thus far they'd been missing the guild's signature fighting spirit. Not to worry, Lucy had enough of that to go around.<p>

Starring in a music video was not something she'd expected to be doing when she'd first become a mage, that much was for sure. Once she was back home she'd have to find a way to incorporate that into a mission somehow. It was fun!

She'd found the lyrics to the song while cleaning up Nate's room, and turning it into a full fledged song wasn't too difficult for the band. They were very talented musicians, for sure, which Lucy still found a little surprising. Then again, if they were as good at being musicians as their counterparts were mages…

Turning it into a video took more effort, not only because they had to coach Lucy enough for her singing to sound somewhat decent, but because they'd needed so many background people. Luckily, the bar where Nate worked provided enough people willing to pretend they were at a huge rock concert. Some of them looked very familiar to Lucy, too.

In the end, the video wasn't as professionally made as any of the other music videos Lucy had seen while she was in this world, but it looked as though that was on purpose. And it showed Lucy Hart telling the story of a girl who'd rejected a boy because he wasn't good enough for her, only to realize later on, that _oh, yes, he was_, because he was now a rock star. For extra emphasis, they'd stuck Lucy in ridiculous make up to rival Lucy Hart's to play the part of the stuck up ex girlfriend. While singing she looked more or less normal, even if Elsa had insisted that she couldn't look like a proper singer in a rock band if she wasn't wearing torn up jeans.

When Levy distributed their work of art, it quickly became more popular than even Lucy had been hoping for. It became Lucy Hart's (though falsely attributed) most popular song to date.

* * *

><p>And now for the grand finale.<p>

Lucy had to admit, she was kind of nervous as she walked into the backstage area of Lucy Hart's next (_huge!_) concert wearing her best imitation of her counterpart's outfit and make up. The fact that Nate, who was right beside her, kept fidgeting didn't help.

"Stop acting nervous, you need to appear as if you belong here", Lucy hissed at him. It didn't help much. He looked almost like Edo-Natsu at this point.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?", a female voice shouted behind them. _Ah… crap, _Lucy thought as she turned around. Getting caught this quickly hadn't been in her plan.

Then she realized that the woman who had yelled at them was Lucy Hart, who was their target, anyway. _Good work, self! _

_"_You again", Lucy Hart hissed as she looked at Lucy. Apparently she hadn't noticed Nate, yet. "Sneaking into my dressing room with a bag of groceries is one thing… a weird thing, mind you, but producing a fake music video? Do you know what my manager's been yelling at me? Other than creepy stuff about perfume…"

"We were making a point", Lucy declared proudly.

"Really, and which was that? Something about copyright infringement?"

"No. That video's the most successful of all your songs yet, isn't it?" The starlet didn't answer, but the annoyed look on her face was enough to go on. "And it features you - sort of - being yourself, no artificial crap in your hair, no reality show producer's idea of what your life should look like. And people love it."

Lucy Hart stared at her warily. "So?"

"So kick that manager to the curb, stop doing what people tell you, and go back to doing what makes you happy. You don't have to throw away your success for that."

"That's why you made the video?" the starlet asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Yes"

"But… being a star, this whole business, it's not just putting a video on Youtube, it's much more complicated than that. Your video doesn't prove anything", Lucy Hart said, folding her arms in front of her chest defensively.

"So you gotta figure it out. I'm not saying 'ditch your manager and be a star, anyway'. I'm saying stop letting people push you into doing whatever they think will make you popular, because they don't know what they're talking about either. Maybe it will be difficult, but in the end, it'll be worth it. Being a star is not important. Being happy is."

Natsu's flying blue feline would approve of that speech.

"I already threw my life away to get this far. This is all I have now, I can't risk it." Her arms were still crossed in front of her, but it looked more like she was hugging herself, now.

"Well, I think there's someone who might help you get it back", Lucy said and stepped aside to reveal Nate standing behind her.

"Hey, Lu", he said with a shy little smile. An Edo-Natsu smile.

"N…Nate? W…what are you doing here?", Lucy Hart asked, taking a startled step back.

"Just wanted to see if maybe you'd change your mind about breaking up before", he said.

"W…what? Y… you… but I… why would you want me back? I was horrible to you! You have no reason to want me back!" The starlet sounded almost hysterical as she said that, and Lucy could tell that she was close to crying.

"Is 'I love you' a good enough reason?", he asked with a grin, which left Lucy Hart blinking at him wordlessly for a moment.

"That's… that's so cheesy", she finally managed to gasp out.

"I don't mind", Nate said. Slowly, very slowly the starlet started to match his blinding smile.

"I don't think I do, either", she declared. And within a moment they'd crossed the distance between them and started kissing as though their life depended on it.

_Mission accomplished_, Lucy thought with a grin. Not that Lucy was vain or anything (shut up!), but she was something of a genius. She did her best not to read anything into the fact that she'd just played match maker for an alternate version of herself and of _Natsu_ of all people. Of course that didn't have any meaning for her real life. This was a whole different world, for crying out loud!

"Uh… guys?" It occurred to her just then, that while she'd had a romantic idea of reuniting them, completely ignoring the practical realities of them getting together. When the sweet kiss turned into something a little less sweet and they didn't look like they were coming up for air anytime soon, Lucy felt incredibly awkward.

"Not to ruin the mood here, or anything, but, don't you have a concert starting really soon?", Lucy asked her counterpart, which got her to detach from Nate's face for a moment. Which he didn't seem to mind, just moving on to trailing kisses down her neck… Lucy forced herself to look away. The mental images! And the real images, too! Not something she needed in her head.

"Uh… yeah", Lucy Hart replied, sounding a little breathless. "You know what? You do it!", she suddenly declared, pointing at Lucy.

"Me? I can't sing your songs, are you crazy?"

"You can just lip sync, you'll be fine", Lucy Hart said with a dismissive wave. Nate looked up at that.

"Lip syncing concerts? That's just wrong."

"Oh, sorry, you're right, I'll go sing live and you can just sit in this hallway for four hours waiting for me to get back, is that cool with you?" Nate's eyes widened a little.

"On second thought, lip syncing is fine."

"But…!" Lucy's protests went ignored, and before she knew it she was being pushed out on stage.

She did her best not to look as overwhelmed as she felt, but she'd never been the best actress, to be honest. Thousands of people were in the arena, she couldn't make out any single face, but they were all clamoring. For her. Well not quite, but close enough.

When the music started up she was suddenly very glad for Nate's habit of listening to Lucy Hart's songs over and over, because she could at least pretend to know this. She grabbed the microphone, and noticed a small monitor in front of her supplying the lyrics.

Thankfully there really was playback. Getting her to sound good for the video had taken forever, and the audience definitely would have noticed the dip in singing quality. As it were, they were cheering, and singing along.

When she finally processed that she was standing on a huge stage with thousands of people watching and they liked it, they were cheering for her… the feeling was incredible. She took the microphone off its stand and started walking around the stage, even adding a few dance moves.

When she 'sang' "Yeah yeah yeah" and the crowd answered it back, her grin was so huge that she felt as if her face would split in half. She found herself rapping about ecstasy with cheese (the hell?), loving every minute of it.

For just one night, Lucy was a rock star. The decision not to begrudge her counterpart for that came much more easily than she'd have expected.

When her hand started glowing, the audience assumed it was just a special effect. Lucy knew it was time for an intermission.

* * *

><p>She ran into the closest broom closet she could find, paying the people passing her no heed.<p>

Maybe she should've been surprised when she saw that the closet was already occupied, but she'd already been wondering where Nate and Lucy Hart had disappeared to.

"I'm not looking!" she screeched and covered her eyes with one hand. She did catch a glance of the two of them looking quite disheveled, but thankfully still clothed as she drew a large arc into the air, which turned into a glowing portal to take her… home?

Maybe she'd be lucky enough. She stepped through it without hesitation.

When it closed the little room was engulfed in darkness once again.

"Wow, look at that, so all that stuff she was saying about magic was true, after all!"

"And now the concert needs to be finished…" Lucy Hart said, her head drooping a little. But then she looked back up at her new found boyfriend. "Come on. Let's go out there and be stars together!"

* * *

><p>Lucy found herself tumbling face first onto the grass as she crossed the portal. Not very graceful, but at least it was soft. And oddly well lit, considering that the stars were up. How did that work?<p>

"Intruders are not… wait… Lucy-sama…? Moshi… moshi…?"

* * *

><p>AN: The title and the setting are both inspired by the song "Famous for nothing" by Simple Plan.

Next chapter's probably not going to be nearly as long as this, but that also means that if I'm properly motivated (by reviews, for instance ;) it should be done pretty quickly.

Let me know what you think


	4. Among the Stars

Chapter 4 - Among the Stars

A/N: Thanks a lot to all you reviewers! As promised, a quick update. This chapter isn't nearly as long as the one before it (10000 words, what the hell is wrong with me) but turned out a lot longer than I was expecting it to, anyway. Hope you enjoy!

* * *

><p>"Sagittarius?" Lucy stared at the horse costume clad spirit with eyes as wide as saucers, which was exactly the same expression he was giving her. He wasn't even saluting.<p>

"Lucy-sama…?", he repeated.

"Sagi…" She caugt herself just before she could repeat his name, because she had a feeling that they were gonna wind up going in circles forever if one of them didn't reclaim their wits sometime soon. "Is… is this the spirit world?"

"Humans aren't supposed to be here…" he said absently. How the head on his horse costume was able to mimic his moods was one of those things Lucy would probably never know.

"Yeah, sorry, I really wasn't expecting to end up here", Lucy said, sitting back on the grass and looking around. While she'd spent a day here before, back then she hadn't really been able to appreciate the place. They'd been busy partying, talking to all her spirits and her friends, there hadn't been a lot of opportunities for sightseeing.

She had landed on a small planetoid, so little that she could feel the curve underneath her. It was covered in grass with just a few trees, giving the impression of a park of sorts There was a bridge connecting it to a rather impressive network of similar planets, some bigger some smaller, and each looking different. Beyond that, all the stars were visible.

She'd thought the starry sky in the apocalypse world had been amazing. It was nothing compared to this Beyond the stars nebulas of all colors were visible, and looking at a constellation closely made it appear as a picture in front of here eyes.

"That's… fine. But how did you get here…? Moshi moshi" Apparently Sagittarius had finally gotten over the shock of seeing Lucy in the spirit world.

"Well, I can sort of open portals to other worlds now, but I can't control where I'm going. I've already ended up in three different worlds, but I really just want to go home. Do you think you guys can help me?"

"We will do our very best to help you, Lucy-sama! Moshi-moshi!", Sagittarius declared and finally saluted again. Not in Lucy's direction, but that really wasn't anything new.

"Thanks." Lucy said with a smile. Just seeing one of her spirits made her feel more in control of her own destiny again. She'd really missed being able to summon them, and not just because Gary had more than once declared her insane for claiming to be a mage. A new haircut from Cancer would've made him change his tune, of that Lucy was sure.

"Follow me, moshi moshi!", Sagittarius declared and started marching in the direction of the bridge connecting the little planets. Lucy rather abruptly noticed that there was no railing. The bridge wasn't very wide. Not too narrow to walk across, but narrow enough to make Lucy feel uneasy facing it.

Sagittarius didn't mind the bridge's construction at all and strode confidently across. Well, he lived here, he was bound to know how to navigate it.

Lucy rather timidly followed him across it, and was surprised to find that there was an invisible handrail that kept her on the path. Encouraged by that, she matched his pace, but had to stop in the middle of the bridge just to appreciate the scenery once more. When she had been a little girl, first meeting her mother's spirits she always wondered what the celestial world looked like , drawing pictures of what she thought it might.

But just as she'd discovered after joining Fairy Tail, her fantasies couldn't even approach the real thing. When she'd imagined being in a guild she'd never thought it would be as good as it turned out to be, and the celestial world was so much more impressive than her crayons had ever been able to capture.

She shook it off, and continued to follow Sagittarius who was waiting for her at the end of the bridge and was saluting again.

The planetoid they arrived on was much larger, and Lucy realized that this was the open air palace where their celebration had taken place. It looked much more serene now, just a few Nikolas hanging around. Somehow it was even prettier without the decorations. Simple, elegant and it felt ancient and homely at the same time.

Suddenly something attacked her leg, and Lucy looked down to find a crying Plue clinging to her as if his life depended on it. "Plue!", she said with delight, and picked him up, cuddling him close. He was shaking, but for once it didn't look like he was nervous. He grinned at her with tears in his eyes, and was blubbering, "Pun! Punpun! Puuun!" The way he said it sounded important, but, well…

"Oh, I missed you", Lucy said, nudging his forehead with hers. He was anything but a powerful spirit, and not a great conversationalist, either, but he was the one she spent the most time with. Having his shaking little presence next to her was always reassuring, and seeing him here immediately made her feel at home.

"Mooooh!", suddenly sounded from across the banquet hall (was it even a hall if it didn't have a roof?" and Lucy looked up to see Taurus running towards her. "Lucy-san and her nice body are back!", he yelled.

"Well, I make sure never to leave the house without it", Lucy said with a laugh. It looked like Taurus was charging to hug her, but with the speed he had Lucy doubted that was a good idea. She sidestepped, and unconsciously held up Plue to shield herself. Taurus missed her, but didn't seem to mind much as he collided with a pillar that had been behind her.

"Moshi moshi", Sagittarius declared, saluting in Taurus' direction.

"Moo! We were so worried!", Taurus yelled, and turned back to Lucy. "But you're fine! And your nice body, too!"

"Sorry, I really didn't mean to worry you guys", Lucy said. "I got lost and I couldn't contact you."

"P… princess?", a quiet voice asked behind her. Lucy wheeled around to see Virgo staring at her with wide eyes. "Is it time for my punishment?", she asked sounding a little breathless.

"No, it never is."

"But… you need to punish me", Virgo said, her eyebrows crunching together just a little. Seeing that look on her normally rather expressionless face scared Lucy a little. "I failed to protect you, princess."

Lucy needed a moment before she realized what the maiden was talking about, and then immediately felt incredibly guilty. Virgo had been there, in the cave. She's dug the way for them because one of the corridors had been blocked. She'd seen her owner stick her hand into an incredibly unstable well of energy and then being in an explosion.

"Virgo, that's not your fault, it was my idea. And I'm fine, really. I'm sorry I made you worry."

Virgo looked startled. "But I didn't protect you!"

"Since when did this turn into a playground for humans?" There really was just one spirit that voice could belong to, and turning around, Lucy saw her suspicions confirmed. Aquarius, practically glued to Scorpio's side was glaring at Lucy.

"Lucy! Glad you're okay", Scorpio said with a smile. Once again Lucy was wondering how such a nice guy got into a relationship with someone like Aquarius…

"Scorpio! Aquarius! So nice to see you guys", Lucy said, with a slightly exaggerated friendly smile in Aquarius' direction.

"How did you even get here? Humans aren't supposed to be in this world", Aquarius said irritably.

"I got here through a portal", Lucy said. "Wait! I'm not wearing spirit clothes!", she suddenly realized. But she felt fine, and she had arrived in the spirit world without a problem…

"Virgo made that up because she likes to play dress up", Aquarius said with a snort. "Don't tell me you actually believed that."

Lucy looked at the maiden in question with a raised eyebrow. Virgo's face looked as expressionless as ever, but she was very pointedly not looking in Lucy's direction. "Really?"

"Typical that you'd believe that."

"You shouldn't use styling products like that. They damage the hair, ebi." Lucy flinched when someone behind her started going through her hair, but relaxed when she realized it was Cancer.

"I had to pretend to be someone else, and she wears her hair like that", Lucy explained, remembering the frankly staggering amount of hairspray Levy had put in her hair when they'd been working on disguising her as Lucy Hart.

"This needs to be fixed immediately, ebi." Cancer declared, and carted her off to a chair, starting to work on her hair almost immediately.

"Lucy! You're alright! I'm soooo glad", Lyra declared, hopping over to her. "Should I sing a song for the occasion?"

"Uh… sure, why not?", Lucy said. "Ow, Cancer, gently!"

"If you hadn't tortured your hair like that, I wouldn't need to do this, ebi", Cancer said, continuing to yank on her head. She honestly had no idea what he was doing, but she had learned to trust him over time.

"It's 1:57 p.m." Lucy looked around to see Horologium standing there. "I was going to save you from the explosion, but I didn't manage to separate you from the energy", he explained. "I promise I'll do better next time."

"Yeah, cause she's just bound to be stupid enough to get herself caught in a gigantic explosion again", Aquarius said. Virgo looked a little irked at that, but before she had a chance to react, another voice shouted, "Lucy!"

"Loke! Aries!", Lucy said with a grin. She really would've liked to get up to greet them, but there was no escaping Cancer's ministrations.

"Lucy you've got to stop doing stuff like that", Loke said as soon as they'd arrived. "First you go missing for seven years and then you go and get yourself blown up. We all thought you were dead!"

"Sorry, I really didn't mean to make you guys worry. It was sort of a spur of the moment idea, and after I ended up in Edolas I couldn't summon any of you."

"You were in Edolas?", Aries asked, surprised, and she wasn't the only one staring at her oddly.

So Lucy decided to tell them the whole story of her journey through the worlds.

* * *

><p>After she was done, everyone (except for Aquarius probably) had agreed to try and help Lucy get back home. But Virgo had insisted on getting Lucy new clothes from the spirit world first, and now Lucy was eating a meal that was carefully selected by Capricorn. He had turned up about halfway through her explanation, but elegantly decided not to ask any questions.<p>

The fact that he'd decided on what she was and wasn't allowed to eat irked Lucy a little, but the meal he'd provided was certainly tasty, so she should probably not complain.

Cancer had declared her hair suitable, but insisted that she come visit him at his home before she left so he could take care of it properly.

"We all live on these little planets", Aries explained while Lucy was eating. "Everyone of us has one of their own, but we meet here, on the big one."

"So, how come all of your planets are so close together? Is that just a coincidence?", Lucy wanted to know.

"No, it isn't. Our planets move if we changer owners, so the spirits of one owner can all stay together. That way we all know what's going on with you and can give each other tips if we're summoned for a battle." Aries had a shy smile on her face, but all in all she looked a lit more confident here than Lucy had ever seen her before.

"Wait, if you make a new contract that actually changes where your planets are?"

Aries nodded. "And the main planet of a complex gets bigger if one owner has more spirits."

"But what about them?", Lucy asked, indicating some of the Nicolas running around. "They're not all mine."

"No, Nicola are so small that they don't have their own planets. The ones that don't have a contract can just pick a planet to stay."

"This is just amazing. I really hope you guys can help me get home, but I'm really happy I get to see some more of what your lives are like around here."

"We're happy that you came", Aries said with a smile. "We were all very worried, there was no word from Earthland at all." She looked down towards the table, hands wringing the wooly hem of her dress. "You're the nicest owner most of us have had. We were very scared to loose you."

Lucy didn't know what to say to that, but luckily she was interrupted by Horologium who told Virgo, "I don't think you can dig a hole from here that leads to Earthland."

"It's worth a try. And if it doesn't work I might be punished."

"Stop sounding so hopeful!", Lucy yelled in the maiden's direction. "There's not going to be a punishment, ever!" Virgo looked at the floor, dejectedly. And then proceeded to dig her hole, which probably wouldn't lead to Earthland.

Plue was standing next to the hole and throwing some of the upturned dirt back in.

"If we calculate the wind speed into it… moshi moshi" Sagittarius was sitting on the floor holding some instruments that Lucy didn't know and seemed to be lost in measuring something.

"Any luck?", Lucy asked. Maybe he'd come up with some smart idea to liken the path of a portal to the trajectory of an arrow and come up with a way to calculate that. Or something, not like Lucy really knew too much about these things.

The archer looked up, opened his mouth and then closed it again. "Absolutely none, moshi moshi"

"Well, this world is sort of connected to Earthland, isn't it? With the connection the stellar mages make to get you guys over there. So maybe if I open a gate for one of you guys, you can go to Earthland and figure out a way to get me there, too. Maybe I can even go through the gate with you."

"Sounds like it's worth a try", Scorpio agreed, which led to Aquarius cooing over how smart he was.

"Alright, I'll try. Open! Gate of the Lion! Loke!" she said, brandishing the golden key. The spirit in question vanished from where he had been standing talking to Gemini.

And promptly reappeared right next to Lucy.

"Well that's a big fat failure", Aquarius said with a snort. "Figures, for that plan…"

"Don't talk to the Princess like that" Apparently Virgo had come back up her hole, regardless of Plue's try to close it again. Speaking of which, the little dog was currently clinging to Loke's leg for whatever reason.

"I can talk to her whichever way I please, servant girl."

"If you don't respect the princess, a punishment seems to be in order", Virgo said, advancing on the water bearer and her boyfriend.

"Scorpio! Are you just gonna let her talk to me like that?", Aquarius shrieked. Scorpio looked a little startled at that.

"Uh… don't talk to my girlfriend like that", he parroted, looking at Virgo.

"Do you want to be punished as well?", she said and stared at him completely without blinking. Lucy could only see it from the side and she found it unnerving, too. Scorpio looked like he'd rather be anywhere but there.

"Scorpio! Do something about that wench!"

"I will punish you."

Scorpio looked towards Lucy. "Now would be the perfect moment to be summoned."

Well Lucy always wanted to make sure her spirits were happy. She took out his key and waved it with a flourish. "Open! Gate of the Scorpion! Scorpio!" He disappeared and reappeared right next to Loke, who was laughing at him gleefully.

Both Aquarius and Virgo stared at him in a way that was clearly unimpressed.

"Sorry, I did what I could", Lucy said.

Scorpio sighed. "I know. Thanks anyway."

* * *

><p>In the end none of the Spirits came up with any idea that helped at all at getting Lucy back to Earthland. So she would have to stay here for as long as it took for her portal magic to regenerate, and then hope that maybe the spirit's connections to Earthland would help steer her back where she was supposed to go.<p>

Meanwhile she got to explore the spirit world some more, and that was incredibly exciting as long as Lucy ignored the nagging voice inside her head that told her that each day here was the equivalent of three months back home.

The planetoid she'd arrived on had been Sagittarius's. All forrest, perfect for hunting, even though there was nothing to hunt, he seemed to be proud of it.

Lucy was staying on on Aries' planet, because the bed she'd been offered was the softest she had ever seen and it was like floating on a cloud. In the morning Virgo immediately showed up to drag Lucy to her planet for a change of clothes. Virgo's planet had an incredibly well kept house with a walk in closet that was incredible. The maiden explained that several other spirits had access to it as well, and that was how Horolugium had managed to get new clothes for Wendy after Master Hades had almost killed her.

Aquarius' planet, consisted, unsurprisingly, completely of water. It reminded Lucy a little of a soap bubble to see that blob of water floating on its own there. There was no bridge leading to it, because Aquarius could float, and none of the other spirits were invited to visit there.

Lucy herself wasn't, either, in case she was wondering.

Lucy kept her comments about how Scorpio was supposed to get there to herself.

Scorpio's planet was a desert, complete with cacti, an oasis with a tiki bar and a huge collection of electric guitars. Thinking about it, Lucy even wondered how someone whose life consisted of water and someone whose life consisted of desert even started a relationship, but then there was that thing about opposites attracting…

Capricorn's planet was under construction, because he'd been away for so long and he had now decided to redecorate everything. He didn't tell anybody how it was supposed to look once it was done.

Cancer's planet was part beach and part beauty salon. Lucy had to spend quite a lot of time there at his insistence, and she had to admit that after he was done, her hair felt and looked better than ever. How he managed to work with scissors almost the entire time and not take off any of her hairs length would probably remain a mystery to her.

Taurus was living on a nice meadow, that had some walls standing around that served no other purpose than hanging up posters of bikini clad girls. Lucy yelled at him when she found out that one of them was of her, but was secretly flattered.

Now, five days after her arrival in the spirit world, she was sitting at a table on the main planet, and writing.

"What are you doing?", a voice from behind her asked, and she looked up to find Loke standing there.

"I'm trying to document everything I can remember about the second world I was on", Lucy explained. Loke sat down next to her and glanced at her notes.

"If I don't remember them, no one will, but even with everything he told me and everything I saw… I barely know anything about these people and what they went through. And I'm the only one who can tell their story. And I really only know what one guy went through… two and a half years without seeing another person… and he still carried on, even though he had nothing to hope for."

"Yeah… I can somewhat relate, but then… my situation was so different that it's not really fair to compare them. Well, tell me when you're done, I want to show you something."

"I'm pretty much done right now", Lucy said with a sigh, rubbing a hand over her forehead. "I wish there was more I could write, but I can't come up with anything more. I forgot some of the details of what he told me, and that just frustrates me."

"Maybe it'll come back to you if you stop pushing so hard to remember", Loke suggested.

"Yeah, maybe", Lucy agreed. She rubbed her hand over her forehead again. With her raging headache she wasn't likely to remember anything more, anyway.

"Come on", Loke said, holding out a hand for her with a smile. She gathered her notes together and put them on the table, and then took his hand.

"Where are we going?", Lucy asked. Loke took her down a way that she hadn't seen before. The bridge they came to was longer than all of the others, and its floor was translucent, which really didn't help Lucy feel safe on it.

"Make an educated guess", he said with a dazzling smile. He had to be practicing those in front of a mirror.

"Uh…" she was still lost in her thoughts about Apocalypse-Gray's world, and it took her quite a bit longer to figure it out than it should have. "Wait, I didn't see your planet yet", Lucy realized.

"Exactly. Save the best for last." The bridge really was a lot longer than those to all of the other spirits' planet. Even Crux, who didn't spend that much time with the other spirits because he was too busy sleeping most of the time didn't live this far away.

"Why is it so far?"

"Because the others complained about it. According to Aquarius it's one of the most annoying things that aren't Lyra."

"Why? Do you play your music too loud?", Lucy inquired. Loke chuckled.

"Not quite. Close your eyes, and don't open them until I tell you to."

"If I don't see where I'm going, I'll fall off this extremely narrow bridge", Lucy said with a pout. It was actually a bit wider than some of the other's bridges (with the exception of Taurus', that one was huge), and the invisible railings were there, too.

"As if I'd ever let you fall, Princess", he said fondly. "Please?"

"Fine. But if I fall, I'm letting Virgo punish you, and then at least I'll know what she even means by that", Lucy said, closing her eyes. Loke laughed and led her further along the bridge. Having her eyes closed she could hear the sounds of the spirit world even better. They were soft and ethereal, almost like music, but just a little too far apart to really form a melody.

They came to a close, and Loke let go of her hand, maneuvering himself behind her. "Open", he whispered into her ear. She opened her eyes, and let out a gasp.

It was light! The whole planet consisted of liquid light, as if someone had taken a rainbow and put it in a blender. The colors were swirling along lazily, intermixing and forming patterns and shape. Gold was the dominant color, but if you looked more closely there wasn't a color that wasn't there.

"Wow", Lucy said, letting out a breathless laugh. "This is…" She didn't know how to put it into words. They were standing on light! The ground underneath her feat felt sturdy enough, but she noticed her feet floating up and down a little. Loke held on to her arm, so she didn't loose her balance.

"Aquarius says it's a ridiculously overblown disco ball."

"Aquarius doesn't know what she's talking about." Loke grinned at Lucy. "My thoughts, exactly. Come on."

Lucy couldn't stop staring as Loke led her further around the planet. It was bigger than the others, not by much, but noticeably nonetheless. The light wasn't just forming the ground, but also shapes that seemed to rise up above it. Lucy had to laugh when she realized that it were shapes of trees that you would usually find in the savannah, and there was even a zebra. "Right. Lion."

"What?"

"It's just… you're always the cool guy, or the playboy with your suits, and your glasses… and then you have a zebra on your lawn", Lucy said with a smirk. Loke shrugged. They were approaching a house, which wasn't too big, but plenty spacious when you considered it was just for one person.

"And this is my humble abode", he said, ushering her in. It was a loft style apartment, with huge windows so you could see the beautiful ground that lay beyond. The furniture was extremely sleek and stylish, and everything was very tidy.

"Humble might not be the word for it", Lucy quipped. "If this were Earthland, the rent would probably be selling your soul, and then finding other people's souls to sell every month after that."

"You might be exaggerating a little, dear", he said with a laugh. He showed her his suit collection while she rubbed her hand against her forehead. If only her hand was a little cooler, it would help more, but like this it barely made a difference.

"Are you okay?", Loke asked, and looking up Lucy saw that he was watching her with concern in his eyes.

"Just… a little headache, is all", Lucy said.

"How long have you had that?"

"Not long", Lucy lied, but she knew it wasn't very convincing.

"You need to leave", Loke said suddenly, and Lucy looked at him with a mock hurt look on her face.

"What, you want to throw me out because I wasn't paying attention to your suits?"

"That's not what I mean, and you know it. You can't stay in the spirit world. It's just as harmful to you as staying in the human world is for us."

"You went three years", Lucy reminded him.

"Yes, but that wasn't a lot of fun. You need to go, otherwise it could really hurt you. Do you think your portal magic is going to be ready soon?" He led her to the couch and sat down with her. She didn't want to admit it, but that was actually a blessing. She'd been getting a little weak on her feet.

"I'm pretty sure I could use it right now", Lucy said, hand pressed to her forehead. "I just… I don't really want to use it. What if I end up in some crazy world and can't contact you guys again?"

"I'll go with you", he declared.

"I don't know if I'll be able to summon you in the next world, that's what I just said."

"I'll go through the portal with you. That should work, right?" He pushed his glasses up. It just occurred to her that living on a planet made of light was probably the reason he was wearing sunglasses in the first place.

"I… I don't know, I haven't tried taking anyone through, yet", Lucy said, concerned. "But even if it works, I don't know if I can open a gate for you to go back here. You could end up in the same situation was me, stuck traveling parallel worlds."

"As long as I'd be traveling with you, there's no place I'd rather be", he said with a warm look in his eyes. It sounded a little bit like a line, but she knew he meant it. After what had happened back when he'd almost disappeared he was the most devoted spirit she knew.

"Are you sure?"

"Positive."

Lucy let out a sigh. "Then I guess we should get going before this headache gets any worse." She got up of the couch and took a deep breath, collecting the magic power and channeling it into her hand which started glowing. She drew a large circle into the air and it transformed into a glowing portal.

Loke took her other and, and she looked at him once more. "Ready?"

"Let's go."

And together they stepped through the portal, which would hopefully take them home.

* * *

><p>When they emerged through the portal, Lucy didn't even have enough time to look at her surrounding, before she was hit in the face with a fish.<p>

_Well, now there's a great start…._

* * *

><p>AN: Well, dear readers, now I have a choice to offer you. I have written a little chapter about what life is like back in Earthland, which is part of this story, but not of the main plot, so it could stand at pretty much any place. It's quite angsty. The next regular chapter will be quite cracky.

I want to post the angsty chapter either before or after the next chapter, but I'm not sure which place is better, so I'm giving the choice to you: what are you in the mood for, next chapter? Angst or crack?


	5. Life without you

Interlude - Life without You

A/N: You decided, here it is. The angsty chapter won out with seven votes, while crack only had two that counted. Pacing wise I'm happy about that, because after the cracky chapter things are going to get dark…

Anyway, because you reviewed so much so quickly, as a reward here's the update. Doesn't have a lot of plot, it's more about the feelings. This time again betaed by my brother Cochrane (whose vote didn't count because of that).

* * *

><p>She was so distracted by the fighting that Erza noticed the explosion almost too late. She managed to change into a higher defense armor just in time, hearing a shout of "Ice Make: Shield" in almost the same moment.<p>

The explosion was loud, incredibly so, and as she squeezed her eyes shut to shield them from the blinding flash, which seemed to burn right through her eye lids anyway, she thought for a moment that maybe they had failed. That maybe this was their world colliding with the one the cultists had been trying to put under their dominion. And that once the explosion was over, they'd either all be dead or in deep trouble.

Neither of that happened, though. When she opened her eyes again, she saw the cultists fleeing, Gray and Natsu getting out from behind the ice shield, and Happy groggily getting up from the wall he'd been slammed into. There was no trace left of the portal device, but most of the cave looked barely harmed. The explosion had somehow contained itself, it seemed.

So they'd done it again. Saved the world at no extra charge, just like Fairy Tail's strongest team was supposed to (even though Lucy would probably be whining about the money again). All in all this had gone better than she'd expected it to. The army was probably apprehending the cultists right now.

Erza really though for a moment that everything was alright, before the ringing in her ears subsided and she could hear Natsu frantically screaming, "Lucy!"

There was barely any trace of her. She'd contained a huge explosion and saved the world by channeling that magic into herself, saving all her friends and possibly the world in the process. And it'd come at the price that there wasn't even anything left to bury. They'd found her headband, along with some singed strands of hair, and some of her skirts fabric, all of it badly burned. It had taken them hours to convince Natsu to stop searching the rubble. The train ride back home was the quietest they'd ever been on.

The dragon slayer didn't come back to the guild hall with them. He just turned towards his home the moment they got out of the train without a word of goodbye. Happy shot them a long teary eyed look before he trudged after him.

How the rumors had made their way back to the guild, Erza would never know, but there was an odd silence as they entered. They'd all heard the terrible whispers that someone wasn't coming back. Seeing only Erza and Gray enter the guild hall could just be a result of the others being tired or something, but everyone watched with bated breath as Erza strode over to Master Makarov to give her report.

Her voice was close to breaking, but never quite did, when she informed him that one his children was dead.

* * *

><p>The funeral was painful. Natsu had flat out refused to attend, insisting that Lucy wasn't dead, she was just missing, and he was going to find her. Erza probably could have made him attend, had she really wanted to. But remembering her vision of her own funeral, she decided not to. It wouldn't help anybody if he came and caused a scene, even if it probably wasn't healthy for him to keep telling himself that she was alive.<p>

Happy, for once, had gone without him, and was already crying before the Master even started his speech. The usually cheerful feline looked so devastatingly miserable that just looking at him made everyone else choke up. Erza was just about to go and pick him up, to offer some comfort as best she could (even if that wasn't her strong suit), when Charle and Wendy beat her to it. Wendy stroking his head and Charle hugging him close probably would have gotten a quite different reaction under any other circumstances, but as it was, his heart wrenching sobs barely got any quieter.

The sky was overcast and cloudy, and you could see Juvia wringing her hands together, struggling not to make it rain. Lucy had been the first to accept the water mage into Fairy Tail, even after she had been abducted by her, and the occasion was apparently enough for Juvia to just once forget about her weird 'love rival' fantasies.

Levy was sobbing and clutching onto Gajeel's hand for dear life. For once neither Jet or Droy made any move to show their disapproval.

Erza felt like Loke should be there and maybe the other spirits. She knew how devoted they'd all been to Lucy and how much loosing her had to hurt them, but without her and her keys no one had been able to make contact with the spirit world.

The Master's speech was beautiful, but Erza had trouble listening to it. She looked over towards Mirajane, who had written parts of it, and saw all of the "Take Over Siblings" crying. Elfman's tears were probably supposed to be manly, but they didn't look like it at all. The former demon had admitted to Erza that it felt a little as if they'd traded Lucy in for Lisanna, even though the two incidents had no connection at all, and that made all of them feel uncomfortable.

Makarov said something about Lucy's connection to the stars, about how her spirits had adored her and how much she'd loved them, how she'd been on her way to be one of the most impressive celestial mages of all time. He talked about how quickly and easily she'd become part of their family, and what a hole her departure was leaving in their lives.

It felt almost unreal when Erza thought about how late Lucy had joined compared to all the others. She felt so much like a part of them that it was hard to remember at times that if you didn't count the time skip, which she tended not to, she'd only been part of the Guild for a little over two years.

Even with the time skip, the numbers on the elegant grave stone that carried the Fairy Tail symbol were much too close together. It almost physically hurt to look at them, so Erza didn't. Gray was standing not far from her, completely rigid in his black suit clenching his fists, his eyes shimmering with tears.

She went over to him, and took his hand, not caring that it would probably earn her a spot on Juvia's list of imaginary rivals. Lucy had been their teammate, no one else here had spent nearly as much time with her, and right now they needed to support each other. If not, they would fall apart.

As Master Makarov finished his speech, Gray pulled Erza into a hug, and she felt his tears matting her hair. His suit wasn't faring much better, as she pressed her face against his chest and let the tears she'd been keeping bottled up for the last four days fall.

* * *

><p>After funerals there was always this point where people were sitting around, sharing memories of the deceased, starting to laugh again, and promising themselves that they'd always remember that person. As if that made it somehow okay.<p>

It didn't, and Erza left much earlier than she would've planned. The stories that were being told about Lucy all felt like they weren't finished, and after a while she just couldn't bear the silence that would descend upon them time and again, and the sound of Levy breaking out in fresh sobs when it did.

She wasn't sure why her feet carried her back there, but as she walked back toward the graveyard, Erza could see that the sky had cleared up, letting some of the constellations shine through. Lucy had tried to teach them one night on an assignment, and while there was no way to remember all the ones she'd mentioned, Erza did know a few. As she found Leo right next to Virgo, she felt like crying again.

Erza hadn't expected anyone to be there at this time of night, but as she got closer to the grave, soft words carried over to her.

"I know you're not dead. I just know it." She froze in her tracks when she recognized Natsu's voice. She hadn't expected him to show up here at all, least of all today, seeing how he'd wanted to boycott the whole thing.

"I'll find you", he went on. Apparently he hadn't heard Erza approaching, which was rare with his acute dragon slayer senses. "I promise. I'll find you, and I'll bring you back home, and then…" A shaky breath.

"And then they'll all feel really silly for doing this." His breath was hitching, and Erza could only see his shaking shoulders, but it was enough to know that he was crying.

Not wanting to interrupt the moment, she quietly turned back around and left.

* * *

><p>The mood in the guild stayed uncharacteristically subdued, but was slowly returning to normal, even though Natsu barely showed up. Cana, who had become friends with Lucy during the S-class exams, had unsurprisingly decided to drown her sorrows in alcohol. Erza herself had chosen cake. Gray seemed pretty normal, aside from the fact that he hadn't undressed in public ever since it happened.<p>

Now, two days after the funeral, people were talking, but the brawl was missing, so everyone heard when Levy suddenly started sobbing uncontrollably. She was sitting two tables over from Erza, and when she turned around she could see that she'd been reading something, a stack of handwritten pages lying before her.

"What's wrong, Levy?", Mira asked, somehow having materialized right next to her.

"It… it…" she took the tissue Mira offered, blew her nose and then continued. "It's really good."

"What's really good?"

"Lucy's book. You know, I'm a critical reader, and I was worried what I would say to her if it wasn't so great, because I didn't want to hurt her feelings. But it's really really good." Levy blew her nose again.

"And I want to know how it ends", she wailed before burying her head in her hands.

No one came up with anything comforting to say to that.

* * *

><p>He kept paying her rent.<p>

That was probably the only reason he went on an assignment with them again. It wasn't the same, not in the slightest, and not just because Lucy wasn't there, but also because they were acting differently. All of them. Gray half-heartedly tried starting a fight with Natsu, but it went nowhere. None of their conversations lasted very long, and it was usually just to coordinate things that had to do with the mission.

After it was over, which felt like it had taken forever, even though it was a pretty quick mission, Natsu immediately went home, Happy trailing behind him with ears hanging down. Gray and Erza went back to the guild.

"I'd thought it would help, going out to work again. I was hoping he'd come back to his old self", Erza said, looking at a beautiful strawberry cake with not nearly as much interest as she should be.

"Are we even still a team?", Gray asked over his shaved ice.

Erza looked up, startled. He didn't seem to be expecting an answer, and that was good, because she wasn't ready to give him one. She hated admitting it, but he sort of had a point. It had been somewhat of a coincidence that Lucy had just joined the guild when she'd needed help with the Eisenwald guild, and that Mira had asked her to come with them. But Erza seriously doubted that they would have stayed together as a team after that if it had just been her and the boys. Lucy didn't have the biggest fire power, but her role in the team was not to be underestimated. She'd provided balance to all of their personalities and with her there, they really had worked well together.

Without her, could they even stay a team?

* * *

><p>Three weeks later found Happy sitting on a table, nursing a glass of milk that was almost as tall as he was. Erza had just found an assignment for them to do, something simple and violent that would suit their dragon slayer well.<p>

"Happy, where's Natsu?", she asked as she sat down next to him. Gray was trailing her after she'd told him about the assignment.

"Out", the feline replied grumpily, taking a swig from his glass. Really, it was a miracle he was even able to handle the thing without drenching himself.

"Out where?", Gray asked as he sat down as well.

"To look for her. Again." Natsu had been trying to come up with theories as to where she had gone other then 'up in smithereens' ever since it happened, and was barely ever in the guild as a result of that.

"Why aren't you with him?", Erza wanted to know. Thus far the Exceed had always followed his dragon slayer.

"Had a fight", Happy replied, looking at his glass but never at them.

"About what?" Erza hoped sincerely that it was fish. The only times the two had ever fought so far it had been about fish, and she didn't know if Natsu could handle a serious fight with his remaining best friend right now.

"He's making it worse!", Happy said slamming his glass down. "She's dead, and he's just lying to himself, even though he knows it's true. And the longer he carries on with it, the worse it'll hurt when he has to give up. It'd be fine if he was mourning, but he's refusing to. The way he's carrying on he'll never get over it and it'll just keep on hurting!"

Erza and Gray were stunned into silence at the outburst. Sure, Happy was more intelligent than he usually let on, but they'd never expected to hear harsh words like that out of his mouth. Let alone about Natsu of all people.

"You… said that to him?", Gray asked.

"Mhm." Another swig of milk. How that was supposed to help was beyond Erza, but seeing a cat drink alcohol would've been even more disconcerting. "He threw me out. I need a place to crash", he looked up at the two of them hopefully.

Erza arranged for him to stay with Wendy and Charle. She was anything but happy that such an arrangement was even necessary, though.

* * *

><p>A week later Natsu let Happy move back in, even though neither apologized for what they'd said.<p>

Two weeks later Natsu started a fight with Gray for a completely ridiculous reason. Three punches in, the ice mage's shirt was nowhere to be found. Erza was so happy at seeing them act like themselves again that she almost forgot her role. When she finally did separate them, they were all smiling.

It didn't last long though, when all of their minds were busy supplying potential comments Lucy would've had on the scene.

* * *

><p>AN: The title comes from the song "Life without you" by Stanfour. Also a recommendation for this one is "Signs" by Bloc Party.

Tell me what you think about this! The cracky chapter is almost done, too, so some motivation could get that one up pretty quickly. See you in Chapter 6: How to Bitch slap a Dragon


	6. How to Bitch Slap a Dragon

Chapter 6 - How to Bitch slap a Dragon

A/N: Thanks so much for your reviews! I was really happy to see you guys liked it (and a little shocked when I discovered that my email client had lied to me when I thought I'd only gotten one review over night…). As promised, here is the crack chapter for you. Not equally cracky in all places, but I hope you enjoy!

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><p>"Oh man, Happy is going to be so jealous", Loke declared, looking out at the world they had landed in. Lucy very calmly removed the fish that was now sticking to her clothes. Such a cute little dress from the spirit world, too.<p>

"Flying fish are terrible", Lucy growled. Her headache was subsiding, but her mood was dropping considerably.

"Well, lucky for us there's lots of choices here", Loke said. "Also, this is an entirely different world, maybe one of the differences is that around here the flying fish are tasty."

Even if they were, Lucy really couldn't understand her companion's excitement. Edolas was a weird world. The spirit world was strange, too. Even the world were her friends had been in a band was somewhat strange, but this one, this took the cake.

Except the cake would probably be made of fish, too.

"What are you so sounding so happy for, anyway?", Lucy asked. Her brain wasn't quite done processing the sight in front of her, just yet. It was just too ridiculous to be taken seriously, and her mind was refusing to accept that this world really looked like that.

"Well, it's fish, I'm a cat… It's natural, really."

"You are not a cat!" Lucy said angrily. She turned around to see if maybe the portal was still there and they could go back, but no such luck.

But at least her brain was done interpreting the visual information before here. They were standing in front of a river, which was so filled with all sorts of fish that there was barely any water. All of the rocks were fish shaped, there fish instead of leaves hanging off the trees with fish of different colors as the fruit, and the air was filled with flying fish as well.

Not to mention the fish shaped clouds.

"I am a lion. Which is a type of cat. A fully grown one, according to Happy", Loke replied gleefully.

"You're not actually a lion, no matter how many zebras you have in your yard. You're a celestial being, a creature of magic, that most closely resembles a regular person, Loke."

He put a hand to his heart and looked at her mock seriously. "You wound me. I have a Lion's pride and a Lion's heart."

"Yes, very poetic. Doesn't mean that you're actually a cat", Lucy growled.

"Well, let's buy some catnip some time and test that theory", Loke challenged and pushed his glasses up his nose.

"Catnip doesn't work on you!" Lucy yelled. "…Does it?" Would he mention it if he hadn't made that experiment some time before?

He blushed a little at that, but then straightened up. "You know what sort of money you'd have to spend to get a high like that? I'm not ashamed."

"Catnip works on you… and you like it…?" Lucy's jaw was nowhere in the vicinity of the rest of her face.

"Yes. And as that thoroughly proves how I am a cat, I will now go catch us some fish", Loke said, smug at having won the argument.

"Well even if I accept that 'cat' nonsense, you're still not a regular house cat. You're a lion, and those come from the savannah, and I'm pretty sure fish is not part of their diet."

"Huh… that's true, I guess", Loke said thoughtfully. "You know what? You're right, I am a lion. You go hunting, you're the girl!"

"Excuse me?"

"And I'll go mark my territory", he finished with a huge grin. Lucy felt a muscle under her right eye twitch.

"Leo, celestial spirit of the ecliptic zodiac, you are not pissing a perimeter!", she yelled so loudly that several flying fish got scared and flopped away.

"I like how you put that", Loke said, laughing.

"Besides, this isn't my or your world, so none of this is actually your territory."

"That's true. But let's just stop quibbling about technicalities and I'll go catch us some dinner." He looked so excited at the prospect that the spikes in his hair, which she'd always thought sort of resembled cat ears were standing up even more eagerly. Maybe he really was more of a lion than she'd been giving him credit for.

"Fine, go, have fun", she said, and sat down, sulking. He let out a gleeful cackle and went about catching flying fish out of the sky with reckless abandon. "Not the flying ones, those are terrible."

"But they're so much fun!"

Lucy just rolled her eyes and let him be. She sat down on one of the fish shaped rocks and watched him. Maybe they should go see if there weren't some people in this world, after all. But somehow she really doubted it.

She tried concentrating on her magic power, and was extremely happy to find that her keys were tingling with the familiar energy that she'd been missing in the previous worlds. So she'd be able to call on her spirits if she needed them. That was a huge relief. Hopefully it would be like that in all the worlds from now on.

Or maybe the next world would be home and that was a concern she wouldn't need to have much longer.

Yeah, right, because she was just so lucky.

Disappointingly she couldn't call her portaling power right now. She was beginning to feel more familiar with it, less like it was controlling her on its whims, and more like it was her power, one that she controlled. Maybe if she used it a few more times she'd be able to learn how to target specific worlds, and then maybe she'd be able to go home.

But right now, it was depleted, not nearly enough to open a portal.

So she was stuck watching a giddy lion spirit chase after fish both in the air and in the water, when he really just could've picked one off the tree if he was really hungry.

He was right, though.

Happy would be unbelievably jealous.

* * *

><p>They had to spend four days in the fish world before she was able to summon enough energy to open a new portal. Eating fish in the morning, fish for lunch, fish for dinner.<p>

Even her overgrown kitty had grown a little sick of it, not that he would admit it.

But Lucy did have to laugh when he found a type of fish that was incredibly fast and had a tendency to make a sort of singing sound whenever it stuck its head out of the water, which it did frequently. Loke caught a few of them and went back to the spirit world just to set them free on Aquarius' planet.

They'd also tested summoning and had discovered that there was absolutely no problem for her spirits to visit the world Lucy was in herself.

What had been a bigger problem was getting rid of Virgo after she'd discovered that the soil in this world had never been dug through, because apparently the fish didn't do that.

Now, though, they'd crossed the portal and ended up in a large darkened room with one glowing wall, with lots of people sitting in rows of seats, all wearing matching glasses that looked a little strange to Lucy.

"What do you think those are for?", Lucy whispered to him. How no one had noticed them coming in was really beyond her.

They looked at the wall, which had writing projected on it that was changing, It looked oddly blurred, though. Lucy realized that it was probably some sort of equivalent to Lacrima vision.

"I don't know. But maybe they make the screen look less weird", Loke theorized. "I'll go get us some."

"How are you gonna do that?", Lucy asked, but he ignored her and went to fetch the glasses. Lucy humphed at being ignored and crossed her arms in her seat. From the soundtrack she realized that this was what she'd gotten to know as 'commercials' during her stay in Lucy Hart's world. Did people actually go to a special place for those, or were they waiting for something else…?

Loke arrived back with the glasses, and handed Lucy a pair. "How did you get them?", she asked warily.

"I asked for them, and the guy outside the door was very helpful. Relax, not every Fairy Tail mage causes undue destruction to his surroundings."

How had he known that her theory was that he'd stolen them from someone in a higher row?

She put them on and immediately the screen looked much more intelligible. She was a little shocked to find that the writing on the commercials was practically jumping out at her. She took her glasses off once and put them back on again to make sure that it was just the effect of them and not some sort of enhancing magic.

"Uh… Loke", Lucy said when she saw him donning his glasses, over the sunglasses he was already wearing.

"What?", he asked, turning around to her. His blue glasses covered by the slightly rainbow tinged bigger glasses looked completely stupid. She snorted, but decided not to tell him that that was probably not how he was supposed to wear them.

"Nevermind." _Idiot. _

A blue background with a castle on appeared. "Oh, I think it might be starting", Loke said. A bold theory since neither of them had any idea what was actually going on here, but it did turn out to be true, when what seemed to be a longer movie started.

When she saw the title, Lucy should've expected what happened next, especially after their enlightening talk about Loke's species confusion. She didn't expect it, though.

The movie was called "The Lion King".

And it was a good movie, it really was. Lucy liked it, she felt for the cute little lion cub and his problems, laughed at the warthog and his friend, and cheered at the end.

Problem was the guy next to her.

He started cooing about the cute little lion cub almost immediately when the movie started, and at first he jut seemed a little too into it.

Lucy had seen him at what she thought had been his emotional worst. When his life had just been about to end and he was still racked with guilt from having (sort of) killed Karen, he'd been in a terribly vulnerable state.

That was nothing compared to when Mufasa died.

When Scar threw him off the cliff, Loke actually yelled out loud. Lucy had to shush him and hoped they didn't get thrown out for this. And then Simba found him. "Wake up, dad. Let's go home."

Loke was openly crying, clinging to Lucy's arm uncomfortably tight. Not clinging in a way that showed any romantic attention, just clinging for comfort. "Wake up" he whined at the screen, thankfully quietly enough not to be a huge disturbance this time.

Lucy debated whether to summon Plue so Loke had something other than her arm to cling to, but decided that the little spirit really didn't deserve that. He might be crushed!

Rafiki smudged the drawing of the little Lion because he thought he was dead, even though he wasn't. Loke was an emotional wreck at that point.

It got better when Simba met Timon and Pumba, but Loke was still way too into the movie all the way through.

She had, for a while, thought that Loke was the sanest of her spirits, despite his playboy tendencies. Well he'd effectively gotten rid of that position in her head. Maybe Scorpio. That guy seemed pretty normal, if you didn't stop to think about his catch phrase.

When the end credits started rolling, Loke blew his nose. "That was beautiful", he blubbered.

"You do know that it was just a movie, right? With drawn characters, no less."

"But… it was just so touching. Right here", he said, pointing towards his heart.

"How did you even see anything, with your sunglasses still on?"

"I still have my sunglasses on?"

Lucy facepalmed so hard that both her hand and her head hurt from it.

"We should go", she said. "Figure out where we are, maybe find some of our counterparts." Not that she'd met counterparts for her spirits yet, come to think about it.

When she got up, she saw that absolutely everyone was walking backwards. Up the stairs.

"Huh?" she asked, and went up the stairs the regular way, Loke following her, to emotional shaken to really pay attention to the weirdness.

As they did that everyone was staring at them as though they were the ones that were insane. Which Lucy thought really wasn't fair.

When they got to the foyer so many people were staring at them that she felt quite uncomfortable.

"We should probably try to blend in", Loke suggested. Lucy groaned at the idea, but agreed, nonetheless.

* * *

><p>When the week was up she was covered in bruises of all shapes and sizes. Because even with this intense if short bout of training she had not gotten the hang of walking backwards for long stretches without crashing into stuff. Maybe that's why it was called a 'crash course'.<p>

The world itself really wasn't too bad. They hadn't met any counterparts, but had discovered that there were two more parts of the Lion movie, and Loke had needed to see all of them, acting just as annoying as he had when watching the first one.

Lucy promised herself that there wouldn't be any catnip experiment. It just couldn't end well.

Opening the portal to the other world, it gave her an immense sense of satisfaction to walk through it forwards.

It gave her less satisfaction when she almost fell into a river of molten lava after stepping through. She shrieked, waving her arms frantically to keep her balance. Luckily, Loke, who had followed her through, caught her hand.

"What the hell?", Lucy asked with wide eyes once she'd somewhat regained her footing on the uneven ground. It was covered in volcanic ash.

"That… seems about right", Loke said musingly, and stared out at the magma flow.

"Oh fantastic. Well at least we don't have to walk backwards anymore", Lucy grumbled.

"I sort of liked it."

"You were freakishly good at it, your opinion doesn't count", Lucy said. "Anyway, we should probably find a place to stay until my magic regenerates." As she turned to go in a direction she'd picked at random, she noticed that he was still holding on to her arm.

"You mind?", she asked, looking down at his hand. He removed it immediately and held up both of his hands placatingly.

"Just making sure you're safe. After all, what would it do to our love if you got hurt?"

Lucy rolled her eyes at him and then motioned for him to follow her. He fell into step beside her, completely unfazed by her rejecting his declaration of love just as always.

"Maybe we'll meet a god with a huge hammer who forges divine weaponry in the fires of hell", he mused. "You know, get a souvenir for Erza."

"If there was a way to take some of this lava, we'd already have a perfect gift for Natsu", Lucy said. The fire dragon slayer would feel right at home here. She wished he was here. Loke was good company and all, but with every passing world she felt further from home.

"I don't know, I don't think bringing food is such a good idea. A souvenir should be something you keep, to remember. Not eat in the first few seconds of seeing it", Loke said.

"He really doesn't need more junk to stuff into his house. He'd appreciate the lava", Lucy said. Talking about her friends as though she'd soon see them again simultaneously made her feel better and worse. Thinking about them made her feel closer to them, but she couldn't help the niggling little doubt in her mind that didn't think she was going to see them again any time soon.

"There's a cave over there, maybe that would be a good spot", Loke said, pointing not far from them. She'd actually missed it, at first, too lost in thinking of home. There was a narrow gap in the cliff that got steadily wider the further down she looked.

"Yeah, let's…" Lucy's reply was cut off by a loud roar that had both of them flinch in surprise.

"What was…?", she said when it stopped, but her question chose to answer itself.

In the form of a huge dragon coming out of the cave.

"Kya!", Lucy said quite intelligently.

"Different cave, maybe", Loke suggested and pulled her hand to leave, but the dragon had already spotted them, lowering its head to their level to scrutinize them closely.

Lucy felt suddenly and unpleasantly reminded of Acnologia. She'd never seen it this close up, but the black chaos dragon was still haunting her nightmares. This large red one didn't look any less intimidating.

Of course she was only sweating this much because they were standing right next a river of molten lava.

"Why is it that I'm friends with three dragon slayers, and the one time that would be really useful…?" she hissed in Loke's direction. "Let's just go", he hissed back and pulled her along the path.

"Humans!", a deep voice roared, and Lucy stared at the dragon in surprise. Of course Wendy had said that dragons understood human language and could speak it, too, but after Acnologia it still surprised her somewhat.

"Yes?", Lucy squeaked, while Loke helpfully supplied, "I'm not human."

"Humans are not supposed to be here. Go back where you came from!" He took a step towards them, making Lucy painfully aware of the fact that his foot alone was almost as big as she was.

"We will, promise! We just got sort of stranded here, but we'll leave as soon as we're able", Lucy said placatingly.

The dragon let out a snort, which coated both of them in a gust of hot air. "Then you'd better go."

"We're going!", Loke said and pulled Lucy's hand again. The dragon seemed to be satisfied with that and turned away from them, apparently loosing interest.

The red dragon. Whose breath was hot. Living next to a river of molten magma…

"Are you Igneel?", Lucy asked before she could stop herself, and Loke stared at her as though she was insane.

"Stop talking, we're leaving", he hissed and pulled her further.

"How do you know my name?", the dragon asked, and turned towards them again. Lucy ignored Loke's pulling and walked back to where they were standing.

"I'm a friend of Natsu's", she said standing in front of the dragon with new found confidence. There was a slight widening in the dragon's eyes when she mentioned that name. He turned his head away, then turned back to her.

"How is he?", the dragon said in a much less aggressive tone.

"Good. He has a lot of friends who care about him, he's a successful mage… Other than the fact that he was abandoned by his dad, he's doing really good."

Next to her Loke was gesturing something, but Lucy didn't turn to look at him.

"There was no other choice", Igneel said grumbling.

"Really? Abandoning him, leaving him all alone without any word from one day to the next, was the only choice? He's still looking for you, years later, he never stopped."

The dragon looked uncomfortable at that, as far as Lucy could judge a fire breathing lizard's facial expressions, anyway. But then his glowing yellow eyes suddenly narrowed.

"I don't have to explain myself to you, human!" he snapped, and Lucy sort of felt like pissing her panties, but didn't show an outward sign of it.

"No you're right. You don't owe me any explanation. But you do owe him! And stop saying 'human' like that!"

"Ill address inferior creatures as I please", the dragon snarled.

"Oh really? Inferior creatures? Did you think that about Natsu when you took him in? Is that why you left?" She'd hit a nerve, she could tell. Loke, still tugging on her arm could tell, too, apparently.

"What I do is my business! And it's not up to some human to question my actions. I am the great Igneel!"

_Slap!_

Loke made a sort of strangled noise that sounded oddly feminine, while Igneel blinked.

"It's not all about you!", Lucy yelled at the fire dragon. "Natsu loves you! He deserves a hell of a lot better than just waking up in a forrest all alone one day, without any explanation, and don't pretend like you don't know that!"

For a moment the dragon just stared at her. Lucy was dimly aware that this just might be the precursor to being violently torn apart, but she was too pissed to care.

"There was no other way", Igneel said, finally, more quietly than she'd been expecting him to. "It was for everyone's good, including his."

"Well you might have told him that. You know, wake him up, tell him you need to leave but it's not his fault and you love him? That probably would've avoided a lot of pain and heartbreak for him."

Igneel turned to look away, blaring his fangs.

"And why did you have to leave? And the others, why all on the same day? What happened there?"

"… That's not for humans to know. Leave, now", he instructed quietly. Lucy was just debating whether to call bullshit on that and demand a real explanation or to let up, because she thought she saw some genuine and more complex emotions than she'd been expecting. But then the ground under her feet abruptly vanished.

She shrieked, and clutched the next available thing, which happened to be Loke's neck. Oh, so he'd picked her up.

"Yes, we're leaving", he announced, and turned, completely ignoring Lucy yelling at him to put her down. He walked much more quickly than she'd thought possible on the rocky terrain and while she was still hitting his shoulder they were quickly out of sight of the dragon.

She stopped hitting him and just crossed her arms, sulking. Soon he put her down, and she huffed at him. "The conversation wasn't over, you know?"

"Were you trying to give me a heart attack?" He looked genuinely distraught.

"What?"

"You bitch slapped a _dragon_! A _dragon _of all things, one perfectly capable of turning you into a tiny smoking pile of ash! Are you crazy?"

"Uh…" Well put like that it did sound rather a bit… not so smart.

"What if he'd attacked? I'm good, but a dragon? How am I supposed to keep you safe if you go doing stuff like that?"

"I… I just… he abandoned Natsu", Lucy tried to defend herself.

"Yeah what do you think Natsu's going to say when he finds out you found his dad and hit him? No, wait, bitch slapped him." Loke was somewhere between terrified and livid, and he'd started pacing in front of her.

"Oh…" Natsu's reaction to her hitting his father… could be anything really, she had no idea. He'd probably approve. "Well I wasn't _bitch slapping, _I was making a point. And besides, he probably didn't even feel it." Unlike her. She was rubbing her hand trying to ease the discomfort a little.

"Please don't scare me like that again", Loke said. The look he was giving her made her feel quite guilty. She'd just acted, without even considering the consequences, and definitely not Loke's feelings. It wasn't really like her, to be honest. Natsu must've been rubbing off on her.

Leading her to hit a dragon…

"I actually did that, didn't I?" she whispered, and suddenly she just had to sit down.

"Yes. Don't make a habit of it."

"I won't, but… shouldn't we go back? I mean this opportunity, we could finally get some answers for Natsu, who knows if Igneel's ever coming back to our world, we should…"

Loke scrunched down to her level and then put a warning finger up to her face.

"I am never going to let you near a dragon again."

* * *

><p>And he stuck to it, annoyingly. They had to stay for four days, again, and while they found a dragon free cave, he had to pop in and out of the spirit world to get some food for her, but he always left one of the other spirits to stay with her, just so that she didn't go talk to Igneel again.<p>

She understood his fear, but really, it was the dragon who raised Natsu. He wasn't just going to hurt her for no reason.

Probably.

But still, having Loke not trust her not to do anything stupid was very annoying, so she force closed his gate when she'd finally gathered enough energy to make the next portal. She could just call him back if she needed his help again, and right now she really didn't want a chaperone. Once he got over it, she'd gladly travel with a friend, again.

She opened the portal and stepped through it, just a little disappointed that she hadn't found out anything more about the dragons.

When she reappeared in the next world, she immediately heard a voice that she realized.

"Because we are Fairy Tail mages!" a rosy haired blur was yelling, just as he charged at some opponent radiating magical energy. Lucy had landed behind a few bushes and was looking to the scene of the fight in shock. She hadn't really expected to land on the side lines of what looked like a pretty big fight.

Which was just ending, apparently. Natsu pulled off some spectacular fire moves, and the opponent finally went down. From the look of the place this must've been going on for quite a while before she'd arrived.

She heard cheering and turned to see Gray and Erza. They looked like they were supposed to, except for being a bit battered, and Lucy let out a breathless laugh. Was this it? Not the best timing, maybe, but…

The colors were right, the clothes were right, he'd just said they were Fairy Tail mages. She stood up to get out in front of the bushes.

When Natsu casually strolled over to his fallen opponent, and snapped his neck.

* * *

><p>AN: Oh I love writing these little teasers of the next worlds. I just can't help myself. Anyway, the title of this chapter was inspired by the movie "How to train your dragon", but some of you might have guessed that already. By the way, there's the movie Kickass, and Sucker Punch, when is someone gonna make a movie called Bitch Slap?

Tell me what you think!


	7. Going Down

Chapter 7 - Going down

A/N: Thank you so much for your reviews, I'm really glad so many people like this, and I hope you'll keep on reviewing, it really means a lot to me. Unfortunately, university just started up again and I have an exam, soon, so time is more limited now, which is probably not going to help the update frequency. I'll do my best, but be warned.

Also this chapter is rather dark. Might also warrant some sort of warning.

* * *

><p>For a moment, Lucy was frozen, mid movement. Her eyes were the size of saucers when Erza and Gray started laughing about Natsu's action.<p>

Laughing about how he'd killed someone.

"How pedestrian", Erza commented.

"You stick people with swords, that's not too fancy, either", Natsu commented. He wiped his hands on his waistcoat. "This'll teach him not to mess with Fairy Tail."

"Yeah, right, because he can still benefit from that lesson so much", Gray said, rolling his eyes.

"Do you want to start something, underpants-man?", Natsu said, eyes narrowing.

Lucy sank down onto the floor, unable to continue listening to the conversation. They were… their voices, the way they talked, it was almost the way it was supposed to be. And then they talked about… Her hands were shaking. Just seeing him do that… so casually as if it was the most normal thing in the world to kill your opponent.

She crawled away on all fours trying to be as quiet as possible. When she was reasonably certain that they were out of hearing distance, she got up and started to run, not caring which direction, her ears filled with the sound of her heartbeat.

So she wasn't home. Of that she was completely certain. No matter how long she'd been in the spirit world, there was nothing that could change her friends into killers. No matter what happened, this was just…

But they looked exactly like themselves. For some reason that felt even worse than the fact that they'd killed somebody, it was that they'd killed someone while daring to wear her best friends' faces.

She slowed down after a while, feeling a little better after the run. Were they a dark guild in this world? Or were they just a little less firm on their morals? More than one of their opponents had been expecting to be killed when they were defeated, maybe here they just didn't believe that people could be redeemed.

Still, the thought sent shudders down her spine. It didn't look as if anyone had minded at all. No discussion, no one looking even the slightest bit uncomfortable, as if killing someone was the most natural thing to do, ever.

Lucy sat down and hugged her knees to her chest. Maybe there was a good explanation. Something to make it less casually horrible than it seemed. Maybe she'd just misunderstood the situation. Maybe it was a long time enemy who'd done so many evil things that for once they'd ignored their morals and…

She didn't know how long she kept sitting in that clearing trying to rationalize what she had witnessed. So she barely had any time to react when she suddenly head voices closing in on her position. She got up quickly, and hid behind some trees, recognizing the voices.

"We could just burn down the entire village, you know, save some time, they're bound to be there", Natsu said, strolling casually onto the clearing, taking off his backpack.

"Didn't you hear what the Master said? Every time we destroy the surroundings he gets a huge stack of paper work from the council. We need to limit out property damage", Erza said, arriving behind him with her huge stack of luggage, not caring in the slightest that she flattened most of the plants in the way.

"He burns the paperwork, so why should we care?", Natsu argued.

"Because he personally gets pissed when you kill bystanders", Gray said. Both guys looked a little more beaten up than they had before, but that was probably courtesy of Erza.

"Well it's not my fault if they're in the way", Natsu said, pouting. They were going to make camp, Lucy realized. The time must be a bit different in this world, because where she'd come from it had been mid day.

"Yes, I'm sure their families would be very comforted by hearing that", Gray snorted. Everyone looked at him oddly at that. But they continued unpacking, Natsu rolled out his sleeping bag, while Erza busied herself digging through her ludicrous amount of luggage. Gray didn't look as if he'd taken anything. Not that he had much use for clothes when he did take them.

"So who's the target, anyway?", Natsu wanted to know.

"Didn't you read the assignment?" Erza asked, looking peeved.

"I read the reward", Natsu said with a sheepish smile. "Also that it isn't far and we don't need to take a train."

Erza smacked him over the head. "You need to pay attention to the important details"

"Ow. Those are important!", he protested, rubbing his head.

Erza and Gray rolled their eyes so synchronously it looked almost as if they'd practiced it together.

"Our mark is a woman called 'Ultear'. She lives in the village Westfalica which is west from here, and we're supposed to _discreetly _dispose of her and anyone else who might be in the house. They say she's a mage, though, which is why the reward is so high", Erza finally explained.

"Discreet? Oh, I hate those", Natsu whined.

"How surprising", Gray said sarcastically.

Lucy had heard enough. The longer she stayed there, the more worried she became that she might be discovered. And frankly, listening to the conversation made her feel vaguely ill. So they did get hired for assassinations. But the master got paper work from the council? So, not a dark guild? Or maybe one ruled by dark guilds?

What she was really sure of was that she didn't want to be in this world at all. She got up from behind her tree as silently as she could, desperate not to be discovered.

When a tree branch cracked under her feet she froze, breaking out into a sweat. But they just continued talking, as if nothing was wrong. Lucy thanked her lucky stars and got out of there as quickly as she could.

When she was out of earshot, she took a moment to collect her thoughts. And started feeling irrationally angry all of a sudden.

They were using Fairy Tail's name to spread fear. Not only that, they had the audacity to look and sound like her friends. This must've been what Natsu had felt like when he'd beaten up the fake Salamander for using their guild's name. It just wasn't right. Killing wasn't right, and it was especially bad for them.

And Lucy decided to do something about it.

* * *

><p>Finding Westfalica village wasn't too difficult. Gray had said it was west, and the sinking sun was easy to follow. Briefly Lucy was worried that maybe the sunset would be east in this world and she was going the wrong way, but when she discovered a small village in a valley, she was pretty sure it had to be the one she'd been looking for.<p>

It took some more or less discreet peeking into windows to find the right house, but luckily that they weren't too many, so it was easy. Although that one old woman who'd caught her looking in had had a pretty scary look on her face.

The house was almost in the middle of the village. They mostly all looked the same, little wooden huts, that all had a homely interior with a fire place and mostly simple decorations.

A very flammable village.

She pushed the thoughts from her head. She saw Ultear sitting in the living room talking to a pink haired girl that Lucy guessed was Meredy.

Lucy knocked on the door impatiently. There was no reaction at first so she knocked again. "Coming!", a voice called from the inside, and when it took another moment for the door to open Lucy had to suppress the urge to knock again.

"Yes?", Ultear said, when the door swung open, looking visibly confused when she saw Lucy. "Who are you? And why are you here this late?"

"You guys need to get out of here", Lucy said without introducing herself. Who knew what her counterpart in this world was like. Mentioning her name could have unforseeable reactions.

"What are you talking about?", the brunette asked irritably, and Meredy appeared behind her, looking curious.

"You can't be here when they come", Lucy said. Ultear just looked at her as though she was crazy and moved to shut the door in her face. "Wait! Fairy Tail's after you."

Ultear's eyes widened, and she paused. "Fairy Tail? Are you sure?" Meredy had gone quite pale at the mention of the guild's name.

"Yes. I saw some of them in the forrest and they were talking about you. You need to get out of here before they arrive."

"We can take care of ourselves", Ultear said, but didn't look quite as confident as she sounded. Meredy looked even less sure of that statement.

"It's three of them, and from what I've seen they're really strong. Do you really want to risk it?"

"Why should I trust you? Someone I don't know just showing up at the doorstep of my house, telling me to run? If what you're saying is true, then why are you trying to help us? It's none of your business", Ultear asked, crossing her arms in front of her chest.

"I don't like guilds taking assassination missions. I think that's wrong", Lucy said.

"What, so you're just trying to make the world a better place?", Ultear asked, one eyebrow raised.

"I believe her", Meredy said. Both Lucy and Ultear turned to her in surprise. "We knew this would happen some day, and if they sent Fairy Tail we can't risk staying."

"It could be a trick. What if that's their strategy, get us out into the open so they can hunt us down?"

"She's an honest person", Meredy said. It took Lucy a moment to remember that the young mage had some magic connecting her to people's feelings. Maybe that was how she could tell.

"Are you sure?"

"I am. We should go", Meredy said. Ultear still didn't look convinced, but seemed to be willing to go along with her companion's assessment.

"They made camp in the forrest east from here", Lucy said. "So you should probably avoid going that way."

Ultear nodded. "I know the terrain, we have an advantage. Let's pack our stuff" Meredy nodded and went back inside, to get her things.

Ultear looked at Lucy for a moment longer. "Getting in Fairy Tail's way… you must be really brave or really stupid. But that's essentially the same thing, isn't it? Anyway… thank you."

* * *

><p>Lucy picked a direction to walk in at random. She hadn't gotten far before a blaze of fire went off behind her where the village was. She paused in her tracks for a moment. Hopefully Ultear and Meredy had gotten out quickly enough. And hopefully they hadn't set fire to the rest of the village like they'd threatened.<p>

She quickened her pace, just trying to get away from there. If they had set fire to the entire village, had they done it because they couldn't find their target? And if so, was it Lucy's fault if the villager's died?

It wasn't that cold out, really, but Lucy felt like she was freezing. She'd just find a convenient cave and hide somewhere until she could leave this world again. Maybe she could summon Gemini to enhance her magic and get out of here more quickly. She had no idea if that would work with her strange portal power, but she really didn't want to stay here and see any more of this world.

It was similar enough, though, maybe she'd be lucky and her money would be good here so she could take a hotel room?

Why had Fairy Tail even attacked the village now? Weren't they supposed to make camp? Was it someone else…?

_No, think about food and shelter_, she scolded herself mentally. Getting involved in this world's problems really wasn't worth it, and probably anything but a good idea.

"There's the smell", a voice behind her suddenly announced, making Lucy flinch violently. She hadn't heard anyone approach…

She turned around and found herself face to face with her best friend. Or at least someone looking like him. She made an odd squeak in the back of her throat. His face was very close to hers, and she didn't like his expression.

"You were in the forrest with us", he snarled accusingly. "I knew something smelled off, but I didn't think it was important."

"I… I'm actually lost, in the forrest, maybe I passed somewhere, but I didn't see anybody", Lucy said, sweat breaking out on her brow. "Maybe you could help me find my way, I'm a little scared actually, I've been walking for hours…" She'd never been a very good liar. But acting scared right now, with the way he was glowering at her was very easy.

"No? Didn't see anybody? Didn't listen in on any conversations? Didn't mess with the most powerful guild in all of Fiore?", he grumbled, closing in on her.

"I have no idea what you're talking about", she said. Her heartbeat was so fast and loud he must've been hearing it.

"I don't buy it", Natsu said.

"I'm sorry but I really don't know. If you can't help me, then I'll just go…" A vice like grip was around her wrist before she could even finish the sentence.

"You're not going anywhere. Where is my mark?" His face was inches from her, his green eyes looking almost black in the twilit forrest.

"I really don't know what you mean", Lucy said shakily.

"A woman called Ultear. Little taller than you, brunette, was staying in that burning village over there, but it looks like she hastily packed up and left, ringing any bells?" Was it Lucy's imagination or was the hand gripping her arm heating up?

"Y… You're hurting me", she breathed out.

"That's the idea."

She could do nothing but stare at him, wide eyed, as the sizzling smell of burning flesh filled the air.

"I didn't do anything." She tried to tell herself that the tears rising in her eyes were only because of her hurting arm.

"Your smell was in the clearing, your smell was at their house, you listened to us, and you decided to go and warn her, didn't you?" He changed his grip to twist her arm around, and she gasped in pain. "Well that was a really bad idea. I guess gotta teach you what happens when you get in Fairy Tail's way."

Suddenly he yanked on her arm, throwing her off balance. Suddenly his grip was gone, and she tried steadying herself with flaying arms, but before she had a chance to, a scalding hand connected with her face, and she tumbled to the ground.

"Stop!", she yelled, rolling on her back.

"Tell me where Ultear is, and I'll think about it", he snarled. A kick to her abdomen made her cough violently.

"I don't know", she gasped through the coughs. "I really don't know."

"Didn't I already say I'm not buying that?" He crouched down to her eye level, his intense glare keeping her glued to where she was.

"Look, I don't know where they went, I was there, but I don't where they are now", she babbled, trying to regain her breath.

"Better. But not the answer I was looking for", he said, and another punch made her see stars. She dimly realized she needed to do something, fight back… she rolled unto her stomach, trying to push herself to her feet, but an elbow to her back made her fall to the ground again.

_My keys…_ she fumbled for them, trying to distinguish them. None of her spirits were powerful enough to face an angry dragon slayer, but maybe if she summoned two…

"You know what? Keep saying you don't know, this could be fun…" She turned to look up at him. His face was right next to her, way too close for comfort, and he was sniffing.

He shoved her shoulder so that she was lying on her back again. She tried kicking out, but he just laughed at her, grabbing her leg to keep it down. He was a lot stronger than her.

"You know, maybe if you didn't smell this good I wouldn't have found you", he said. His hand was wandering further up her leg and suddenly Lucy realized what he was talking about.

Her brain just couldn't quite compute in the first instant. This was Natsu. Her best friend, the one she always felt safe around who would never hurt her, who would always protect her, catch her when she fell out of a tower and find her if she was missing…

The hand on her thigh heated up and she screamed.

Blindly grabbing at her keys she concentrated her magic power and blindly called out for the stars to hear her. She couldn't perform the proper ritual, not with him pinning her down, and not even knowing whose key she was grabbing she could only pray that the one she trusted most was listening.

Natsu's _No, not Natsu, fake Natsu, evil Natsu, not Natsu!_ Face was closing on hers and she used both her hands to try and push him away, keep him as distant as she could. He smirked at her efforts.

"You know, force closing my gate just because I wouldn't let you hit the drag…" whatever else Loke was going to say died on his lips when he saw the scene before him. Lucy just thanked her lucky stars when she heard his voice.

An instant later there was blinding light and a yell, and her assailant was off of her. She let out a sob of relief, and pushed herself to her feet.

"You want to get in my way, too? I'll rip you apart", evil Natsu said, wiping his mouth glaring up at Loke who had an absolutely murderous look on his face.

"Bring it on", the lion spirit snarled, sounding like Lucy had never seen him sound before. She really hoped she wouldn't have to, again.

"I'm all fired up", Natsu said, cracking his knuckles, looking so much like her Natsu in that instant that Lucy found it hard to breathe all of a sudden.

"Lucy, get out of here", Loke said, turning to look at her seriously. She wanted to protest, her spirits weren't shields, when he fought she had to be there, but all of that died on her lips. She just couldn't stay.

"No matter what happens", she whispered. "Make sure you come back to me."

"Don't worry", Loke whispered back and then turned back to his opponent, his ring engulfing his hand in a ball of light. Lucy started stumbling away. She had no idea where she was going but her feet carried her away as quickly as they could, anyway.

As she looked back one last time she saw two blurs of light attacking each other, one the light of the stars, one the flame of a fire dragon. It wa vicious, and she turned away quickly.

She started running, stumbling over the undergrowth more than once but she didn't care. Adrenaline was making her run faster than was safe or than she should be able to with her leg still hurting. But not fast enough not to hear the screams starting to come from behind her.

_Loke can't die_, she reminded herself. _He can't die, he's immortal, he'll be fine_ over and over again like a chant in her head.

_What are you getting so worked up about? It's not like stellar spirit's can die, so what's your problem?, _Angel's voice taunted her.

_But they can still feel the pain_, her own voice answered.

Tears were streaming down her face, but she didn't stop running. She'd put him in this situation, his pain, the screams, it was all her fault. But if she hadn't…

The woods behind her were on fire, but she couldn't help shivering. As she continued to run, just get away as fast as she could she thought about covering her ears so that she didn't have to listen to what she'd caused. But that was wrong. She couldn't just close her eyes and pretend everything was fine, not when a friend was suffering for her.

So she heard the most terrifying sound of all.

When the screaming stopped.

* * *

><p>She ran even faster after that, even though her muscles were screaming at her to stop. It was pitch black in the forrest now, the light from the fire too far away. Maybe that meant she was safe, now? But she didn't dare stop.<p>

Because of the darkness she didn't realize until it was too late that she was crashing at full force into someone. She tumbled to the ground.

"S…sorry", she said, dazed, trying to pick herself up.

"Sh…. Don't worry", a soothing voice said, and a small hand was on her shoulder. "Everything's going to be fine."

Was that… Cana?

Lucy wanted to say something, but a sharp pain in her arm cut her off, and she could only stare dumbly into the darkness as her whole world turned into clouds.

* * *

><p>Odd… why would you put marmelade into the sky? So pretty… why didn't they have that at home? She should try to make that happen at some point.<p>

But there was no rush. She really enjoyed her marshmallow pie. Didn't she know someone who liked pie? Ah, well…

"Do you want some?", she asked the girl next to her. She just shook her head, her eyes tuning different colors as she moved, and Lucy dug back into it. Their boat was drifting along peacefully.

"So, where did they go? Ultear and her friend?"

"Away", Lucy said, and once she was done with the two syllables taking what felt like a year she giggled at herself. She reached out to touch the passing flowers, but somehow they were farther than she thought. A tangerine fell into her hand.

She took a bite and looked out at the station their train was in. Her reflection was sunny, and as she touched the glass, it popped like soap bubble.

"Van's almost here", the walruss said making itself comfortable on the cornflake. Lucy let herself fall next to it. Such a nice english garden. But the dog… why was there custard in its eyes?

"Where did they go?", one of the police men asked.

"No idea. I'm a stranger, they didn't want me to know", Lucy replied. His face was growing long. "They didn't trust me."

The rain coming down on her made her skin look more tan than it ever had. So pretty. "And I didn't ask where, because if I don't know it's safer for them. But if I did know I wouldn't have told anyone, I'm a good girl."

The rain turned to bugs. And they were biting her. Her scream sounded muffled to her own ears.

"Get them off!", she yelled, but the joker only laughed at her.

"Get them off!", she yelled again.

* * *

><p>"Get them off!", she shot up from her lying position, and frantically pushed the bugs off of her. Were they growing out of her skin? There were so many…<p>

"She really doesn't know anything", a bored voice said. Why didn't they help her? She was covered in the stuff, why wasn't anyone helping her?

"So, then what was the point of this dumb interrogation?", Someone grumbled.

"Get them off!", Lucy yelled again, and her voice wasn't slow anymore.

"Now we know for sure she wasn't lying. Also entertainment."

"Can't you hear me?", Lucy was screaming, but no one listened to her.

"Entertainment? Watching people so drugged up they're comatose for three days is entertainment?" the voice wasn't the same as the others. Lucy turned towards it, but the large milk bottle was in the way so she couldn't see.

"Oh, they mumble lots of funny stuff. And besides, she looks a lot like that rich chick who stole all of her Dad's money and then kicked him out on the street. Imagining how the high and mighty look like when they fall is always fun", that voice was female. Probably. Or koala.

"But basically we don't have any new lead?"

"Yeah, pretty much."

"The bugs!" Lucy yelled, throwing her arms up. Which were completely bug free. She stared down at her hands and there was nothing no bugs, or larvae or slime… "Where'd they go?", she asked significantly more quietly.

"We should just kill her."

Lucy looked up and finally the room made sense to her. She was sitting on an itchy mattress, waving her arms about like a lunatic while Cana was sitting in the corner, looking amused, with Gray standing next to her looking bored, and Natsu on her other side looking absolutely murderous.

That glare made her head clear up much faster.

Lucy still wasn't sure what was going on, why she'd had these weird visions, but she did remember one thing very clearly. She had to get away.

Wiggling her fingers she felt that her magic was maybe two thirds there, but she couldn't make a portal like that. She grabbed her belt, and was relieved to find that all of her keys were still there. Aquarius would kill her if she lost them.

"Oh look, she's just about back with us", Cana said with a grin.

Lucy ignored her and grabbed the key she'd been looking for.

"Open! Gate of the Twins! Gemini!", she yelled, and immediately the two little spirits appeared.

"Piri Piri", they greeted in unison.

"I need to open the portal, help me", Lucy said, her voice still sounding a bit strange to her own ears.

"What is that?", someone asked.

Gemini just transformed into Lucy, and she collected her magic in her hand as quickly as she could, the twins copying her move.

"Wait, there's two of them?"

Lucy drew a large circle in the air, and Gemini did the same. It started glowing, and Lucy was ready to weep with joy as the portal appeared on the wall next to where she'd been sitting. She rolled through it, ignoring everything else going on around her.

* * *

><p>She landed on her knees on a hot day, dirt marring her hands. She tried to push herself up, but the smell overwhelmed her before she could even register her surroundings.<p>

"Brain?", a sort of roaring voice asked, and Lucy looked up. She let out a scream. This had to be another one of those weird visions, like…

The creature had an eye hanging out of its socket, all the rest of the skin looked like it had only been hapharzardly stapled on, and it was a greyish yellow color of decay. Lucy had to gap from the smell.

It reached its arm towards her, and Lucy tried scrambling away. Suddenly a loud bang filled the air and the creature stopped moving, falling down to the ground.

Lucy turned around, staring up at Bisca, who was holding a large rifle and looking rather pleased with herself.

"Boom", she announced. "Headshot."

* * *

><p>AN: Special shout out goes to my brother, Cochrane, who got me a Happy plushie for easter, it's so cute! Anyway, the chapter title comes from the song "Going down" by the Pretty Reckless, and I'm not going to tell you which songs inspired the drugged fantasy, because if you know where Lucy got her name, you should be able to figure this out.

Also congrats to this story for now officially being the longest I have on here. And we're still so far from the end…

Anyway, please review!


	8. All we wanna do

Chapter 8 - All we want to do

A/N: Sorry it took so long, university has decided that I actually need to study (whoddathunk?) and all in all real life is back to demanding time.

Thanks for all of your guy's support, though. Shout out this time goes to Emil C, who writes the longest reviews in the history of all reviews. Thank you so much, I really do appreciate it.

I have a special announcement, too. On DA they'd call it a kiriban, not sure if the terminology is correct here, but anyway. Whoever writes the hundreth review gets to pick an AU for Lucy to visit. Just please no crossovers, you can borrow concepts from other things, but please no characters. If the hundreth reviewer doesn't suggest one, whoever's next gets to.

Of course if you got an idea anyway, share it, if it inspires me it might make it into here :)

* * *

><p>Bisca's look of satisfaction dropped as she saw something behind Lucy. "Move!", she yelled, gesturing somewhere over her shoulder. "There!" Was it her thing in this world to only form sentences consisting of one word?<p>

Still, Lucy scrambled to follow her orders. It was probably the best idea under the circumstances. Two more shots rang out, and as Lucy turned around she could see two more of the foul smelling creatures had gone down, the contents of their skull… Lucy turned away, because throwing up would probably not be constructive right now.

There was a groan coming from somewhere behind the line of woods they were facing, and it sounded like it was multiple voices forming a dissonant chorus.

"What are these things?", Lucy asked, having moved somewhere behind Bisca.

"Zombies, sweetheart. Never seen any horror movies?"

"Not… really." But she did know of the concept, undead creatures coming after the living to eat their brains… Lucy let out a half yelp. She really wanted to keep her brain. It was useful in many situations… except under pressure. "What are we supposed to do?"

"Well, it's simple. You take this, take it in both hands, you need to keep it steady", Bisca said, handing her a gun. Lucy had never held one herself before, and was surprised at the weight. "And then you push down this lever and then afterwards pull the trigger. You gotta point this end at whatever you want dead." Her words reminded Lucy uncomfortably of the world she had just left.

"I don't want anything dead", she said in a subdued tone.

"That's exactly the sort of attitude that's going to get you eaten", Bisca replied. "Well we gotta leave, anyway. Follow me." She turned on her heel and led the way, thankfully in the opposite direction from the woods.

The sun was hot in the sky, and away from the woods there wasn't too much vegetation. Their way lead up to a range of mountains. "Where are we going?", Lucy wanted to know.

"Survivor's camp. Everybody's welcome who's not zombie bitten." Bisca gave her a sidelong look. "Think you'll probably get in."

"I didn't get bitten!", Lucy said quickly. Not getting in would equal being left out and about where there was zombies. Definitely not something she wanted.

"Relax, I know a zombie when I see one, even the ones who ain't quite there yet. You got nothing to worry about." Speaking of relaxed, the cowgirl seemed to be handling the zombie infestation quite casually.

"What even happened here? Why are there zombies?" Lucy asked. There were no groans anymore, but she couldn't help looking over her shoulder. If a zombie ate her brain, how would she finish her novel?

"You don't know? What hole did you crawl out of?" Bisca asked with raised eyebrows. They were climbing up further now, the beige stones under their feet hot from the midday sun.

"Uh… not a pleasant one", Lucy said evasively. Just thinking about that world had her suppress a shudder. "But I really don't know what happened, can you tell me?"

"Not much to tell", Bisca said with a shrug. "Crazy scientists or something made a bad experiment and suddenly there's zombies crawling down the street. Least I think that's what happened, news people didn't know what was going on and then there were no news anymore. Me and a few others managed to put a camp together and defend it against the zombies, but it ain't looking like there's too many more people left, besides."

A dying world with only a few survivors… Lucy really wasn't liking the flashbacks here. But still, Bisca seemed only slightly bothered by what was going on.

"Why are you so calm?", Lucy just had to ask.

"Panicking gets you eaten. Me holding my shit together saves lives. Simple as that."

"Simple… right." Her nonchalant attitude about everyone being eaten notwithstanding, Lucy was impressed by her.

They were now climbing up some large rocks, and while Lucy could manage to get herself there, she probably couldn't without her panties showing. Not that there was anyone around to look.

"Almost there", Bisca declared, and when Lucy managed to get to the same height as Bisca she saw what her guide was talking about. Beyond the rock they were on was a small plateau with several larger rockfaces shielding it. On top of all the surrounding mountains people with rifles were stationed, keeping a look out for zombies. On the plateau itself was a small spring, which was also being guarded.

The place was filled with tent, some looking quite modern and high teck, others looking haphazardly strewn together and home made. But they all gave the impression of being well maintained, and the people walking around looked healthy and most of them seemed to be in a good mood, too. If she'd landed here instead of in the forest, she'd probably have assumed that this was a large camping trip.

"Impressive", she said, and Bisca gave a satisfied smirk.

"Follow me", she instructed, and swung herself over the rock, which was much less steep on the other side. "So far we haven't had any real zombie attacks here, but from experience we know they're bad at anything other than walking slowly, so them scaling these mountains ain't likely."

"How long have you guys been building this?", Lucy asked. It almost seemed as if they'd prepared this in advance, considering how perfect it was.

"Ten days. We got lucky with this place, one of the guys knew it, he's familiar with the terrain", Bisca explained. Well, that settled it. Should she ever be caught in an apocalypse situation (one that didn't put her on the front lines fighting people who wanted to get Zeref) she'd definitely look to Bisca for guidance. Who knew the sniper would be so well prepared?

Looking around the camp she noticed a few familiar faces. She thought that Max was among the guys keeping a look out over the canyon, but it was too far to be sure, and there were definitely some people she knew in passing from Magnolia. No one she really knew by name, though…

Until she spotted Elfman sitting on a barrel next to a tent with a down cast look on his face. "Oh", she exclaimed.

"Huh?", Bisca asked.

"He… looks familiar", Lucy said vaguely, remembering that this Bisca hadn't recognized her, so they probably weren't in Fairy Tail together in this world.

"Well I wouldn't try and talk to him if I were you", Bisca said, making a sound that was somewhere in between a snort and a sigh.

"Why not?", Lucy asked.

"He had two sisters. One of them got turned into a zombie, and the younger one thought it would be a good strategy to try and talk her out of it. Got killed, and he had to put a bullet in the zombie sister's brain to stay alive. So now he's not in the best of moods."

"U… Understandable", Lucy breathed, eyes wide. Remembering what she had heard about how Lisanna in her world had 'died' Lucy had a feeling that scenario made a lot of sense. A little too much, for comfort, really.

"Who's that?", A voice next to them asked, and both Bisca and Lucy turned around to see Alzac standing next to them.

"Survivor I found in the woods. What's your name, anyway, sweetheart?", Bisca asked.

"I'm Lucy."

"So that's Lucy", Bisca introduced her, even though Alzac had probably heard her.

"Great. Welcome", he said with a smile, and then turned back towards Bisca. "So… you made it home safe. Good", he said with a slight blush on his cheeks, not meeting the sharp shooter's eyes.

"Yeah", she said, and for a moment they just looked sort of past each other until Alzac cleared his throat. "Well, I'll go check on the defense. You want to help Lucy find a tent?"

"Yeah, I'll do that."

"Good, so…"

"Right."

As soon as Alzac vanished behind one of the next tents, Lucy whipped towards Bisca with one eyebrow raised questioningly. "Okay what was that?"

"Uh… want some advice, sweetheart? The whole 'world's ending, so let's have sex' thing… makes things all sorts of awkward when the world takes its sweet time actually ending." Lucy couldn't really do anything other than blink at that statement.

"Let's go find you a tent."

* * *

><p>They actually had quite a few spare tents, which once again made Lucy question how they'd managed to be so well prepared. Apparently several people there had been stashing stuff in this location as part of a "zombie plan" for a while.<p>

A "zombie plan" was apparently just a joke among people who liked horror movies, but the fact that it had come in useful made those guys who had one unbearably smug. Lucy had only been introduced to two of them, but neither looked like they were the ones who would be able to escape from the zombies by merit of their physical skills.

Alzac had apparently had this area as his hunting ground, and was thus acquainted with the area. This was also how Bisca had met him. Lucy hadn't found out what had led to their other involvement, but maybe she would. She was probably going to be forced to spend a week here, anyway, so she had time.

Unless they all got eaten by zombies, of course.

Lucy was now sitting in her tent, which wasn't very big, but offered decent protection from the elements, and was able to assess herself properly for the first time in quite a while.

The results were not favorable. Her dress was torn, and covered in dust from the climb up the hill and grass and dirt from the forest floor, her hair was a mess for all the same reasons, her back ached from however she had lain on that scratchy mattress while drugged, and the burn mark on the wrist and thigh probably both needed attention.

She wasn't sure how she was going to explain how she'd gotten new clothes once she was done with her plan, since this world probably was one without magic, but she didn't really care. Judging from the survivor's attitude they probably wouldn't be too interested anyway. Maybe they'd even believer her story of coming from a different world. Their world was overrun by zombies, how much of a stretch was interdimensional travel, really?

"Open!", she called, waving one of her keys around. "Gate of the maiden! Virgo!"

A puff of smoke filled the tent and a stellar spirit materialized in front of her.

Loke.

She gaped at him for a moment. She felt reminded of that moment in the square in Edolas when she'd needed some fighting power and got Virgo offering to dance, instead.

"Wha… you two aren't mutually interchangeable, you know that, right?" She looked at the key in her hand just to make sure it wasn't her mistake, but of course it was Virgo's. She could identify all of them blindly.

"I know, I asked her to let me come, instead", he said, pushing up his glasses. Now that she'd gotten over the shock of him being there, she had enough capacity to be shocked by the way he looked.

"Loke, you look terrible", Lucy said.

"Thanks, you look lovely", he said with a smile. She looked down at herself again, and it was the same mess she'd been assessing.

"No I don't", she said.

"No you don't, but I'm a gentleman." Lucy let out a sigh.

"You really shouldn't be here, you need to rest…" Lucy couldn't even look at him without feeling incredibly guilty. He was bruised, his suit was damaged, he was holding one of his arms protectively and his glasses stayed on crooked even though he kept pushing them up.

"I'm so sorry", she burst out. "I know I shouldn't have left you there, it was just…" she tried to find words to describe what she'd felt in that moment, but she just couldn't. "I really don't want to use spirits as shields, and I'm so so sorry I did that to you… I… " she was only vaguely aware of talking much more quickly than was probably good if you wanted to be understood, but she needed to get all of this out of her system.

Loke caught her hands which she'd absentmindedly been wringing, and looked her in the eye, effectively silencing her.

"Lucy, I don't blame you. I told you to run away, remember? You didn't use me, I volunteered", he said so earnestly that it took her a moment to get her train of thought back.

"When I heard you screaming, I just…", she said more quietly than before.

"I'm fine. A few more days in the spirit world and I'll be as good as new. You don't need to keep apologizing."

"I…", she began, wanting to protest, maybe apologize once again, but it died on her lips. "Thank you." He gave her a small smile as he pushed his glasses up again.

"That's better", he said.

"But why did you come, now? You should be resting in the spirit world, you said so yourself", Lucy said. She wasn't sure what exactly had happened to him, and was more than a little afraid to ask. But one thing was clear, and it was that he wasn't a hundred percent again.

"I wanted to see how you were", he said, his voice dropping more serious again. He looked her all over, checking for signs of injury, apparently. She was briefly reminded of the look she'd seen flash on his face when she'd called him.

"I'm fine", she said, but he didn't look convinced. "Really, Loke, nothing happened."

"What I saw was not nothing", he reminded her. She had to look away from his eyes, because the reminder of what could've happened… she tried to suppress a shudder, but knew he noticed it, anyway.

"You got there before anything happened, really. I'm fine." And it was true. Nothing really had happened, the feeling of fear grabbing a hold of her at the thought was completely misplaced. It wasn't what did happen, just what could've.

"You know you don't have to hide things from me, right?"

"I know." She stayed quiet for a moment, but then continued. "He hit me. But that's all, when I realized what he wanted… I called you immediately. I'm a little banged up, but that really is all, I promise."

Loke looked at her face searchingly, to try and see if she was hiding anything else. After a moment he seemed to be satisfied, though. "Alright." He let out a sigh. "Well I'm just glad you got out of there okay. When I saw…" now he was the one trying not to shudder. "I was so worried when I got back to the spirit world, I drove everybody crazy."

"Well with some of them that wouldn't take long", Lucy quipped. He raised an eyebrow, but then he gave a little snort.

"Yeah, well I don't think there's any driving Aquarius crazier, to be honest."

"Poor Scorpio", Lucy said. It was tentative, and not the funniest they'd ever been, but both of them were smiling again.

"So, anyway, why are in a tent? And what's that smell?", he asked, scrunching up his nose.

"Oh, the smell, right", Lucy said, sniffing around a little. To her chagrin, she discovered the source of the smell quite quickly. "Looks like I got bits of zombie on my dress."

His eyebrows shot up so quickly they were hidden by his hair completely. "Zombie?"

"Yeah…", Lucy trailed off.

"You really know how to pick these, don't you?" He took his glasses off and rubbed his eyes.

"Well, I don't…"

A call for brains cut their conversation short.

* * *

><p>When they got out of the tent, everyone in the camp was buzzing with activity, carrying supplies, guns, whichever from A to B. There were quite a few who looked as if they had no idea what to do, though, and just flitted from place to place trying to be helpful.<p>

Lucy spotted Bisca in the crowd, and went over to her. She wasn't sure how to explain that she had a friend who had appeared out of thin air, but with all the confusion it probably wouldn't even come up.

"What's going on?", she asked, and the sharp shooter barely spared her a look.

"Huge wave of zombies approaching, we're getting everyone ready to defend. You still have that gun I gave you?"

"Yeah."

"Alright, then you'd better get over your fear of killing stuff, 'cause you're gonna need to." And with that, Bisca was off, shouting at someone to do something, but over the noise Lucy doubted whoever it was intended for even heard her.

"You're really not good at this traveling to other worlds thing, are you?", Loke asked from behind her.

"Oh, shut up, it's not like you guys were any more helpful than just going places randomly." Loke just rolled his eyes at that.

"Braaaaiiiinnns! Wonderful brains!" a voice suddenly sang out quite clearly from beyond the edge of the stones.

"Lovely brains!", another voice sang out, and suddenly the two were joined by a chorus of more and more voices, all singing out for brains, wonderful brains. They were harmonizing, waving in counterpoint melodies and it sounded quite nice, if she was honest. Would've been more impressive if the lyrics didn't mostly consist of the word brains, but all in all.

"The zombies are singing?", Loke asked, dumbfounded. Someone nearby stopped for a minute to look at him.

"Course they are, were have you been?"

"Elsewhere", Loke declared as the passer by went his way, to who knew where. It wasn't likely that he knew, himself. "There's singing zombies?", he asked towards Lucy.

"I didn't know they sang", she said, putting up her hands placatingly. "But they're pretty good, actually."

"That's not the point!"

The first zombie scaling the walls was shot down immediately. He fell down in what seemed to be slow motion, only to be replaced with another, dragging himself up, slowly. Another shot took him out.

And then it was as if a damn had broken. Suddenly it turned from two to hundreds, and the sound of groans and gunfire filled the air. Thankfully the singing had stopped, but it took less than a minute of the fighting for one thing to be abundantly clear.

Even with all their guns and all their preparation there was no way they could withstand a wave of zombies that large. Lucy drew her own gun when a zombie managed to climb down onto the plateau, and still sort of hoped she wouldn't have to use it, because she could barely see through the smoke from the guns.

Maybe she should summon Scorpio or Sagittarius. Aquarius would've been ideal for getting rid of the lot of them, but it was dry as a bone around here. Seeing the state Loke was in, she really didn't want him fighting against the horde.

Her musings were cut short when Bisca's voice echoed through the air.

"Retreat!", she yelled, and soon everyone was echoing her call.

"Where?", Lucy called, a panicked tone creeping into her voice.

"There!", Loke yelled, grabbing her shoulder and pointing her in the direction everyone else seemed to be going. Behind them some people were keeping up the shooting, but almost everyone else scrambled up the rock side, which wasn't as steep as it looked, but not ideal for evacuating a large group of people. Lucy did her best to scramble up and not be in anyone's way, Loke close behind her.

Soon the way evened out, and most people broke into a run. The zombies weren't fast, so that was probably a good idea. Maybe they'd be unable to follow them up the mountain, but if they'd gotten this far toward the camp… They probably weren't so lucky.

But soon Lucy had no idea where to go, who to follow, because people were scattering into every direction. It seemed in the haste to get away, all their previous organization was flitting away, and Lucy couldn't see anyone she knew, so she picked a path to follow at random just as everyone else was doing.

Loke was panting beside her, and she knew she wasn't doing much better. That a celestial spirit getting winded was a little odd, but Lucy didn't have any time to dwell on it.

The sounds of the fight were getting quieter, though, and there was no smell of zombie in the air, anymore.

When they reached a small clearing, Lucy dropped down onto a stone, because she just couldn't run, anymore. She was still slightly woozy from the drugs and she just didn't have the reserves to keep running, anymore.

"We should keep going", Loke announced, breathing heavily. "We can't afford to stay in one place for too long." He plopped down beside her, anyway.

"I know…", Lucy agreed, not moving one inch.

"Maybe go to a holiday resort for the next world?", he suggested.

"I'll do my best." Lucy gave a little chuckle. Both of them looked pretty terrible, now, but she couldn't help laughing. It was just a little too ridiculous for her, right now.

They sat in silence for a while, both trying to catch their breath.

How neither of them noticed the zombie sitting next to a tree three yards away from them would forever remain a mystery.

When she did notice him, however, Lucy let out a shriek that made Loke flinch violently. The zombie didn't even look up from his examination of his own leg.

"What are you… whoa!", Loke yelled, noticing the zombie himself. "You still have that gun?"

"Uh… yeah", Lucy said, digging around for it. Why hadn't it attacked, yet? Lucy paused for a moment, looking at it more closely. It looked much more human than the others she'd seen, so far, the hair was matted down with grime and the skin seemed to be dislodging itself in chunks from him, but all of the limbs were still intact…

Lucy almost dropped the gun when she realized that underneath all of the dirt the hair was pink. She blinked a few times, frozen.

"Uh, what are you waiting for?", Loke said, his eyes locked onto the zombie as well, but apparently without having made the connection just yet.

"It's Natsu", Lucy squeaked, which caused Natsu zombie to look up briefly, but then he just sniffed his lower limb.

"No, it's a zombie, which you need to shoot."

"I can't shoot Natsu!" The zombie version of him had this clueless look on his face that looked almost exactly like his counterpart that Lucy had trouble even thinking about shooting.

"It's not really Natsu!", Loke argued, gesturing frantically. Zombie Natsu didn't seem to care at all.

"But, look, he's harmless, he's trying to eat his own foot", Lucy argued. Well, probably, it wasn't like she knew what was going on inside of zombies' heads.

"Yes, well let's hope he succeeds, so he can't come after us when he decides he gets a taste for brains. Cause I doubt he's gonna be satisfied with his own", Loke said, getting up from the rock and preparing to leave. Lucy stayed seated.

"That's mean. Natsu is actually not that dumb, he just likes to charge into situations without thinking about them, first."

"That's not what I meant", Loke said. "Our Natsu has never tried to eat his own foot, and he's not an undead monster with a craving for neurons."

"Yes, well he's not trying to eat ours, so why don't we just go and leave him alone? He's not doing anything."

"He could follow us. And then do something", Loke urged her. He sounded a lot like he'd sounded after she'd slapped Igneel. As if she was being unreasonable or something.

"Not if he eats his foot. I'm not shooting him, and I'm not giving you the gun, either", Lucy said, crossing her arms. Loke threw up his hands in exasperation.

"Fine, get eaten, see if I care", he snapped, but it didn't sound all that serious. "But still, we should leave before he changes his mind", Loke said, holding out a hand to help Lucy up, which she grudgingly accepted.

Natsu-zombie looked up briefly, and then asked in a cheerful tone: "Brains?"

Loke looked at the pink haired undead creature (which Lucy had to admit looked a little ridiculous) and let out a sigh. "Apparently not."

* * *

><p>In the next four days they didn't encounter any more zombies, unless you counted one raccoon which didn't look all that trustworthy, but ran away when it saw them. Natsu zombie hadn't followed them, but Loke insisted they keep moving through the mountains to avoid being followed.<p>

Lucy insisted he should go home and regenerate himself, but he always pretended not to be listening. She considered doing a forced gate closure, for his own good, this time, but decided against it. After she'd done that the last time she didn't feel too comfortable at the idea.

They had been traveling for maybe ten minutes when Lucy spotted the first of them. A large nut, sitting on the grass, with eyes.

"What is that?", Lucy asked, staring at the odd plant that was blinking at her.

"Nevermind that, what is that?", Loke asked, pointing to a green plant with eyes and a sort of funnel like snout. It was rocking from side to side and eyeing them suspiciously.

A plant. Eyeing them suspiciously.

It apparently decided not to do anything, though. But then, what would a plant decide to do, anyway?

"That's… weird", Lucy said, but went past both the plants, Loke following her.

"Maybe this world has more magic than you thought", Loke mused.

"Yes, but what's the point of a plant with eyes?", Lucy asked. In the distance she spotted a sunflower that was rocking with the same rhythm as the green plant, smiling brightly.

"I don't know, what's the point of singing zombies? They haven't tried to eat us, yet, so there's a point in their favor."

"True", Lucy agreed. She passed the sunflower. It winked at her. "Wait, what?", she asked, and stopped suddenly. Loke didn't bump into her, but only just.

"Heya Tom, it's Bob", a voice sang out from behind them, and Lucy turned around to see three zombies nearing them.

"Oh, shit", Lucy said, and drew her gun. These zombies she wouldn't hesitate to shoot at, she decided.

But the green plant beat her to it.

"Huh?", both Lucy and Loke asked quite intelligently, as the first zombie went to his knees after having been hit with three green bullets from the plant's 'mouth'.

Several other plants sprung into action and suddenly bullets were flying from all directions, prompting Lucy and Loke to take cover behind one of the large nuts, which didn't seem to mind.

"New sunflower over there!", a voice yelled, and Lucy turned around to see Droy pointing towards a patch of grass. Levy, holding a small packet of seeds ran over there and dropped them on the ground, not even pausing to look at the results of her work before turning around and running back.

If she had looked to see what her actions had brought, she would've seen a puff of smoke followed by a sunflower popping up almost immediately.

It was quite impressive. Especially since the multitude of colorful plants made short work of all of the approaching zombies.

"That… I did not expect", Loke said, and Lucy nodded frantically, agreeing with him.

She flexed her wrist tentatively, and found it flowing with magical energy.

"You know what? I think we should go."

"Yes, let's."

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><p>When they stepped out of the portal, for once managing not to stumble over each other with that feeling of displacement that followed leaving one world, it was night out in the other world.<p>

They'd landed in the middle of a town and it looked quite familiar. Lucy turned around, and saw a sign hanging on a large door behind her.

It said "Fairy Tail".

"This… do you… do you think this is it?", she asked, surprised at how shaky her voice had become. He blinked a few times, just as surprised as she was.

"Well. One way to find out", he said, and pushed open the door.

* * *

><p>AN Title inspiration and one line of lyrics come from Johnathan Coulton's Re: Your brains. Also inspiring was "There's a zombie on your lawn" from the end credits of plants vs zombies, and the zombies were singing Monty Python's Spam Song, just with slightly altered lyrics.

I couldn't decide whether to go cracky or angsty with this chapter, so I decided to include bits of both.

Tell me what you think :)


	9. This is Home

Chapter 9 - This is Home

A/N: I'm back! I'm really sorry about the long wait. I could give you a lot of excuses and reasons, but I doubt you want to hear any of that. But maybe you'd like to read the new chapter…?

Lucy barely had time to appreciate that the guild hall looked the way it should, before a furry blue missile hit her square in the chest.

"LUUUUCYYYY!", the loud cry rang out, and she couldn't help laughing as she caught the little blue feline in her arms.

"Happy!", she said with a grin, and cuddled him close.

"You're back! We all thought you were…" Happy sniffled, and there were tears in his eyes. "I'm so glad you're back!" he wailed.

Everyone in the guild hall was staring at them, and she had a feeling it wasn't because Happy was being so loud. Because really, what else is new?

"I got a little bit lost", she said, finally taking some time to look around. It looked right. The people all had a dumbstruck expression on their faces which wasn't their best look, but other than that they looked right.

The decor was right (except for that demolished bench in the corner, but that fit pretty well, too). And the smell was right, too. She didn't have a sense of smell that could nearly rival Natsu's, but smelling something specific had a way of reminding her of things.

"Looks pretty good", Loke said next to her with a smile of his face, and Lucy was embarrassed to admit (not that she would out loud, mind you) that she'd almost forgotten he was still there.

Well, one thing was off. It was way too quiet, and it began feeling a little uncomfortable.

Not that Fairy Tail could ever stay quiet for too long. All of a sudden everyone started talking over each other, erupting into a wall of noise that almost knocked Lucy off her feet. She heard people asking her questions, calling her name, cheering, but she couldn't actually make out anything specific.

Suddenly people were crowding around her, and she knew she answered some of their questions, barely remembering what she said, afterwards because she was so busy listening to everyone else that she didn't have any time to listen to herself.

She recognized who was standing around her, and then realized that there was someone missing. She looked around, and finally found the head of rosy hair she'd been looking for.

He was staring at her, frozen, eyes wide and mouth slightly open. It looked a little worrying, to be honest, and Lucy tried to break the tension by giving a tentative little wave.

And then he broke out into one of his huge, dazzling, Natsu grins, and seeing that chased all the remaining doubt from her head.

She'd finally come home.

She broke out into a breathless laugh, too relieved to put it into words, and clutching Happy to her chest spun around in a tight circle.

"You know what?", Cana called out, waving a tankard into the air. "This calls for a party!"

Lucy, seeing Erza's wide blue eyes, and Natsu hopping over tables to get to her, couldn't help but agree.

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Lucy wasn't sure there'd ever been a bigger party at Fairy Tail. Maybe the one when Lisanna had come back from the dead (sorry, Edolas), but Lucy hadn't been nearly as drunk, then, so from her perspective this one was bigger. As Loke led her back to her apartment, she couldn't stop grinning.

"It's finally over", Lucy said breathlessly. Now, looking back at her adventure, it didn't feel nearly as long, she hadn't even visited that many worlds, but not knowing if she'd be stuck getting chased by zombies until the end of time had made it feel infinite.

"Congratulations", Loke said. "No, you're not going to balance next to the river, you'll fall in." She'd hardly even started directing their step towards the edge, how could he tell?

"I never fall in!", she protested, but secretly agreed with him. The walkway seemed to have started rocking with the waves of the river. Funny how it did that.

"I believe you, you don't need to prove it", Loke said. For some reason that made Lucy giggle. She didn't really know, why, herself. Almost everyone had offered her a drink and she'd been way too happy not to accept most of them.

She'd been busy the entire evening telling stories of all the worlds she visited, but after a while she'd probably mixed up some of the details. Well she'd be able to clear up any questions tomorrow.

"Loke?"

"Yes, princess?"

"Thank you. For everything, I mean", she said. Hopefully she wasn't too drunk for him to take the sentiment seriously.

"You know I'll always come when you call me", he said with a faint smile on his face. "Welcome home." And he vanished in a flurry of light back into the spirit world, leaving her standing in front of her house.

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The first day back Lucy decided to take it easy. How could she not, really, when being back in her own fluffy bed was so welcoming that she didn't even want to get up when she woke up at noon. Too bad there was no one to bring her breakfast in bed.

But then an image of Happy carrying a tray of eggs towards her and managing to mysteriously trip over something mid flight, throwing all of the contents onto her blanket, leaving her to clean it up and get up even sooner popped into her head. Maybe it was better this way.

Discovering that she had no food left in her kitchen, except for some foul smelling glob that she couldn't even identify anymore almost drove her to leave the house, but before she could do that she still had to take a bath…

And that ended up being so heavenly that she spent way too long sitting in there, until she smelled like a flower inside and out and was so pruny you could probably squeeze her out and she'd loose all shape just like Plue.

Really, you'd think that the thing she missed the most being lost amongst the worlds and not knowing if she'd ever make it back, would have been her friends, but, well… rediscovering the luxuries of her own home seemed much nicer right now.

Of course the silence couldn't last.

"Lucy!", a shrill voice called and suddenly her bathroom door swung open. She let out a shriek and tried to hide herself further down in the water, but all the bubbles were long gone.

"Good morning!", the little blue cat called out, despite it probably being three in the afternoon by now.

"Ha…" she tried answering, but sort of forgot her mouth was still underwater and she just let out a stream of bubbles instead. She pushed herself higher and tried again. "Happy what are you doing here? Bathroom, privacy, remember, we had that talk with you and Natsu?"

"But you weren't in the living room", the Exceed said and dropped down on the edge of the tub, completely disregarding Lucy protests.

"No, and remember what we said about knocking?"

Happy scratched his chin and looked towards the ceiling thoughtfully. "Uh… no?"

"Always knock before you enter a room! Especially one where people might be naked!", Lucy yelled, and pushed Happy off the tub. He let out a little shriek and landed with a dull thud, too slow to catch himself with his wings.

"Ow!", he complained, rubbing his head.

"What's going on in there?", a voice called out, and before Lucy even had a chance to protest, the door swung open again, and there, in all his pink haired glory Natsu appeared.

While she was in the tub. Stark naked, and the water was completely transparent by now.

The resulting scream would leave all of their ears ringing for hours.

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She locked both of them in the bathroom, after Natsu had handed her a towel with eyes squeezed shut, which had been much more difficult than she'd expected. Hunting down her clothes actually took a little bit longer than usual, because she had trouble finding her underwear drawer. She'd thought about moving her underwear, just so that her friends would stop rifling through it every time they came over, and had apparently already done so, without remembering where the new spot was.

Still, she managed to find everything, and was finally able to open the door to the bathroom and properly smack Natsu over the head.

"Ow. What was that for?", he asked, rubbing the spot.

"The bathroom thing, still, I just didn't want my towel to drop, so I didn't do it before. Now, once again, for the record, for both of you. Instead of breaking in through the window, you can just ring the doorbell if you want to visit. But no matter what happens, you do not enter the bathroom without knocking to see if it's okay. Never! Understand?"

The both nodded at her rant, both looking quite unhappy.

"Good, now that we've cleared that up" (she wasn't naive enough to believe that this would be the last time she'd have to give them that particular speech.) "What are you two even doing here?"

"Well, you didn't come to the guild today, so we thought we'd come to you", Natsu said, sunny demeanor back in an instant as if she'd never even scolded them. "We want to go on a mission!"

"What? I just got back and you guys want to leave already?" She wasn't sure if her face showed it, but she was a little hurt. Sure life had gone on while she wasn't there, and of course they had to work, but they could at least spend a little more time with her now that she was back.

"Huh?", Natsu looked at her oddly.

"Well, I just thought you guys could stay for a little longer…", Lucy said.

"What do you mean? Don't you need to pay your rent?"

Just the mention of the word made her feel hot and cold at the same time. She had completely forgotten about it while she was traveling, and now the reality hit her like a sledgehammer. She wasn't quite sure about the time differences between the worlds, but in her time she'd been away for at least two months. If you took the spirit world into account…

"Oh god the rent…", she said, wide eyed, sinking onto her bed in shock.

"Yeah, so let's go on a mission", Natsu said with a huge grin on his face.

"Huh?" Now it was Lucy's turn for not understanding. "I thought you guys wanted to go."

"Not without you, stupid!"

Well, not realizing that they meant to take her with them probably was stupid. But she hadn't even considered going back on missions this quickly that it just hadn't occurred to her. After all she'd just been caught in an adventure that didn't look as though it would ever end, why go on a new one right on the next day?

"What? I just got back, I'm barely even settled back in, and you want me to leave already?" Nevermind that her toes still felt a bit pruny, she didn't want to leave the apartment containing the glorious tub.

"Well, we gotta make up for lost time. Come on, it'll be fun!", Natsu declared and stared at her with one of his blinding grins. Lucy was torn for a moment. Launching straight from one adventure to another wasn't really her favorite pace… but she did need money.

And she had to admit that she'd missed that sort of spontaneity that came with being a member of Fairy Tail.

"Okay, fine. But I need to find my shoes first."

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After three days of sitting in a ditch waiting for bandits to dispose of, Lucy was really starting to doubt the wisdom of agreeing. After the fight with said bandits that left her with a face full of mud and a torn up skirt she was starting to doubt her sanity.

At least it was pouring rain so the mud washed off her face rather quickly.

What a freaking relief.

"…Never should have listened to you… and what did you pick such an annoying mission for, anyway? … Could've been security at a ball, or helped out at a magical clothing store…" To be honest, she was barely listening to her own rant, and all the whining seemed to roll right off her partner who was smiling contently. He walked along next to her without a care in the world, and Lucy fought the urge to hit him for being so cheerful. She doubted she'd stay successful for long.

Happy had flown on ahead to alert the local authorities of the location of the now incapacitated bandits. Lucy had asked him to carry her, so she didn't have to walk back all the way through the miserable weather. He'd babbled something about speed and weight, and vanished more quickly than she would've thought him capable of.

Little blue traitor.

As nature was conspiring against her at that point, she didn't realize that she was about to step into a hole in the ground before she was already tumbling down. "Kya!" she exclaimed, trying futilely to regain her footing. Holes in the ground were excellent traps, nevermind the naysayers.

"Lucy? You okay?", she heard Natsu's voice call out over the edge of the hole. It was deeper than she'd realized, but giving herself a quick once over, she found herself more or less okay, except for some new scrapes and bruises.

"Yeah, fi…", she started calling out, just as she was wondering how she'd landed so softly. Feeling around with her hand she found herself lying on top of something covered in fabric.

Her voice died in her throat when she realized that the cotton covered thing was an arm. Connected to a person, cold, unmoving with graying skin… undoubtedly dead for a while. Before she even quite realized it she was scrambling back as fast as she could, putting as much distance between herself and the body as was possible in the small ditch.

Then she looked further and saw the corpse's face.

She screamed.

"Lucy?" a concerned voice called out to her, but she barely heard him. Blood was rushing in her ears and she felt hot and cold at the same time, staring into those large, glassy eyes. She wanted to look away, run away, put as much distance between the gruesome sight and herself as possible, but she found herself unable to move, unable to stop screaming and unable to form a coherent thought.

Her partner slid down the hole next to her. She turned to look at him, and as his face went slack and his eyes widened she knew that she wasn't going crazy.

The blond hair with the little bow. The short pleated skirt. The keychain attached to her belt. It was unmistakable.

The body in the ditch was Lucy.

Her brain had shortly stopped working, but now it was kicking in full force, thoughts tumbling over one another as she processed what exactly she was seeing and what exactly it meant.

She turned to Natsu, who was still blinking at the body, and said in a low voice, "You knew."

He winced a little, and looked from the dead Lucy to the living one. His face told her what she already knew. She was right.

"You knew", she repeated, breathlessly. "You knew, you must've."

He opened his mouth, closed it again, and looked away guiltily. But that wasn't good enough. She hit his leg and yelled, "You knew!"

"N… not exactly", he said dazedly. "I wasn't sure."

"It didn't fit. My story, you…" The puzzle pieces fell together in her brain. Little inconsistencies she'd ignored when she was facing them, but now… now she couldn't understand how she'd been so blind so stupid. "Erza's eyes aren't blue! I didn't move my underwear drawer, I never bought any strawberry shampoo!" Had there been more? Thinking back to the party she realized there'd been more. Cana had been sitting there with a barrel of beer, not wine. Levy's headband had been tied on the wrong side.

"I should've known…", she concluded, cursing her own stupidity. She'd been drinking and so happy, so she'd been willing to ignore it all. She'd been away for so long, things might've changed… people's eyes didn't change color. "Nothing changed, it was never right in the first place."

Natsu grabbed her by the shoulders. "Lucy, calm down."

"Don't touch me!", she yelled at him, pulling away. "You lied to me!"

"I… I wasn't sure, it could've fit." But she knew he was lying. She couldn't explain why she was so sure, but there wasn't a doubt in her mind. She wasn't his friend, she wasn't from this world, and there was no way he hadn't realized it right away, or at least earlier than her.

"No. I was talking about an explosion, and travelling through worlds, while she was lying dead in a ditch, and there's no way my story fits with anything you knew about her", she said accusingly. He blinked at her, looking sheepish. "You did know", she said again.

"… her eyes are green", he finally said quietly, looking down to the ground, carefully avoiding the body. The admission didn't make Lucy feel any better. She dropped back, sitting on her butt in a muddy ditch and she couldn't care less. She suddenly felt very very cold.

"I'm not home. It's still going on." She didn't feel like she was about to cry, none of the regular symptoms manifesting. But she dimly realized that her cheeks were starting to wet with moisture that didn't come from the sky. "I have to go through more worlds. It's…"

"No you don't", Natsu suddenly said, more forcefully than before.

"This is the wrong world", Lucy said darkly. She thought he'd understood that already.

"Well… yeah, but you don't have to leave."

"Yes, I do, I have to find my way home", Lucy said, glaring at him as if he was stupid. Which he was, incidentally.

"But why? You could just stay here. You don't have to go anywhere", he argued.

"Aren't you listening to me?"

"I mean it. You don't have to go. You're missing a world and we're missing a Lucy. It's obvious." He had a hopeful look on his face, and for a moment, a short moment, Lucy could see his point. It would be so simple. Stay here, move the underwear to the other drawer and pretend she belonged. No more travelling, finding a home…

"No!", she yelled, and wished her voice was steadier. "No I have to go home. To my home. They're waiting for me!"

"They don't even know you're still alive. And what if you never get there? It won't make a difference to them if you're staying here or stumbling through other worlds forever." He knelt down next to her and looked at her imploringly.

"I will get home. I will find them", she insisted. Of course there was no way of knowing that. She had no idea if it was true, she couldn't have. But she had to believe in that, had to convince herself at every moment of that journey, because she knew otherwise she'd fall apart.

"Well maybe. But do you really think 'maybe' is worth more than finding friends and a home here, for sure? You can just stay."

"This isn't the right world", she said.

"Yeah well, maybe it's not perfect. But it can be good enough." His eyes were open and vulnerable, and she had to force herself to look away, because if she looked at him too long she knew he'd convince her. It was too tempting.

"No", she said weakly. "I can't just give up. I can't just stop looking. What if the next world is the right one, and I never know because I've stopped trying?"

"But what if all the other worlds are even more different, and you never find a nice one again? What if you get stuck travelling, and don't find any home at all? We're your friends. We love you, and we'll take care of you. So some colors are different, big deal. You could be happy here."

"I'd never stop wondering about home", Lucy said. But she wasn't quite convinced of her own words. If she was really happy there, could she forget about her real friends? If she replaced them with people that were almost them, would she stop caring about the real ones? Maybe. And that was the scariest idea of all.

"And what about her?", she suddenly asked, gesturing toward the dead Lucy lying just a few feet away from them. He flinched a little as he followed her gaze, and quickly looked away again. "Does she mean so little to you that you can just replace her? Do you just want to replace her with me, and forget about her? Make her whole life meaningless if no one even cares that it's over?"

"What? No! She's my best friend!", he yelled, eyes wide at her accusation.

"But you don't mind switching her out and pretending nothing's changed? Doesn't seem like she's that important to you, as long as you have somebody else." Her words came out more venomous than she intended, but she couldn't bring herself to care. Dying was one thing to be afraid of, but dying and no one even cares? No one even remembers?

"She is important to me! That's why I don't want to loose her!", Natsu yelled.

"You already have. Look at her! That's your Lucy, that's your best friend, and nothing I do, whether I leave or stay is going to bring her back. We might look alike, but we're not the same person, and you know it. You'd always know it if I stayed, and maybe said something or do something she wouldn't you'd always know that it was wrong, and you'd always be reminded of what you lost. Isn't that worse than facing it? That way it's never going to stop hurting!"

He looked like she physically struck him. For a moment he opened and closed his mouth without saying anything. Lucy hadn't even realized that it had stopped raining, until she saw his eyes swimming with tears. He looked back and forth between Lucy and her counterpart, and then, ever so slowly, the tears spilled over.

"Please don't go", he choked out. But she knew he saw her point. She wiped away her own tears and shook her head.

"I have to", she said, and felt for her magic. The portal power was easy to reach and ready to go. If she was right it could lead her back home. If he was right it would keep throwing her into places she didn't mean to be for the rest of her life, and she'd never find what she was looking for.

Staying would be easy, and it might at some point in some other bring her happiness and make her stop missing her friends. But that would be an even greater loss. Giving up on them was the worst thing she could do.

Her own friends would never give up. Not on her, not on anyone.

So she couldn't give up on them.

"I'm sorry", she said, as she waved her hand in a sweeping arc, forming a new glowing portal. It stood out strangely in the desolate landscape. It would vanish as soon as she stepped through.

He held out his hand, close to her arm as if to stop her, but he didn't grab. "Please stay", he repeated.

She didn't answer, just looked at him one last time, and stepped through the portal.

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She stumbled out into a completely white corridor, leaving several muddy footsteps that looked very misplaced.

Next to her was an open doorway, and a strange blue light was spilling from it. Intrigued, she took a step toward it, but before she even put her foot down, a voice called out.

"Halt! You're not authorized to be here. You're under arrest."

And the handcuffs closed around her wrist before she even saw the man clicking them on her.

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A/N: Big thanks to everyone for your support! I was really happy about all of the reviews, and I really wouldn't have expected that many. I'm really happy about all of them, and I hope you still enjoy reading this. It's far from over, and I'll do my best to close the updating gaps again.

The chapter title is based on the song "This is Home" by Switchfoot.

I'd love to hear your thoughts, and see you next chapter!


	10. Utopia

Chapter 10 - Utopia

A/N: Anyone still remember this? It's been so long, so I don't really expect anyone to still be reading, but… here's a new chapter.

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><p>"How did you get in here, who are you, who are you working for? Is this the work of the dissidents? It is, isn't it? What nefarious plot are they-" A voice behind her started blabbering.<p>

"Please. Calm yourself", a second voice interjected. "We've been over this. There are no dissidents, that claim is ridiculous."

They were both still behind Lucy and though she tried to twist around to see them she wasn't particularly successful, as a strong grip on her upper arm prevented her from moving too much.

"There's two of them, now! And who knows how many more working from the shadows."

"There are no shadows. Making sure of that is the entire point of working here, or have you forgotten?"

"What, so you're janitors or something?", Lucy snapped. Which probably wasn't smart, but dammit, she was having a horrible day and getting captured for no discernible reason was just the rotten cherry upon the shit sundae.

But if they were janitors they were probably very good at it, the entire hallway was entirely spotless.

Except for the muddy footprints Lucy had left and the moisture that was still dripping off her from being in that miserable pit for too long.

"No we're not janitors", the second guy said, sounding somewhere between puzzled and slightly offended. "What we do is only available to you on a certain clearance level. Doranbolt, would you scan her number, please?"

"Yeah sure-" the first guy made a choked noise suddenly and then continued in a voice about two octaves higher, "it's not there! There's no number!"

"Don't be ridiculous, there's always a number", the other guy said, and Lucy vaguely wondered what number they were talking about. The only thing that came to mind would be her measurements, but somehow she doubted that's what they were talking about.

Really she was way too tired to take this crap seriously.

"No, look", the first guy said, and Lucy felt a tug on her right hand. Which was still cuffed to the left, so that was pulled along and and forced Lucy to turn if she didn't want her shoulder dislocated. Which she didn't want, incidentally.

"What? This is impossible", the second guy said, and then there was a click and Lucy felt her right hand be released from the handcuff. Her arm was wrenched forward, so she could see the back of her own hand and the much larger hand grabbing her wrist.

"What is the meaning of this? What is that symbol, where's your identification?" Finally the second guy had entered her field of vision and she could see he was wearing a uniform of white with some blue and gold embroidery. He was tall and skinny, wearing glasses and his black hair done up in a strange imitation of top knot…

And Lucy knew him!

Before she could quite place where she's met him, though the other guy stepped in front of her, too. He was wearing the same uniform, but his hair was cropped short and there was a pattern of scars crisscrossing down the side of his face.

"Mest!", Lucy burst out, surprised. It had been a while, but she was sure. It was that guy that had pretended to be a Fairy Tail magician during the S-class exam but he was actually working for the council.

Council, right, that's where she knew the other guy from, too. Lars… Lancelot… Lame… no, but something with L, definitely.

"Mest? What does that mean? Is that a secret code? Is it the name of the symbol? What is a Mest?", Mest asked curiously, staring down at Lucy's right hand in awe. Oh right, Mest was just an alias, his real name was… Doranbolt, right?

"If it were a secret, it would probably not be the first thing she said to you, now would it?", Leorio… no wait, Laharl! - interjected calmly. "But please, do answer, why is there no identification tag on the back of your hand? Was the pink symbol tattooed there in hopes of hiding your identity?"

"No, it's a guild mark, it's not for hiding anything", Lucy snapped. "It's there to show which guild I belong to."

"Guilt? So you admit to your crimes?", Doranbolt asked eagerly.

"What?", Lucy screeched. "That's not what I said at all. Guild. It's a group of people, not a feeling."

"See?", Doranbolt said, looking up at his partner with a gleam in his eyes. "A group! I told you there were more dissidents."

"That would be most unfortunate", Laharl noted, pushing up his glasses. He pushed up his glasses and fixed Lucy with a stern look. "If you are willing to inform us about the people working with you we might be able to negotiate a deal in your favor."

"Look, there's been a misunderstanding", Lucy said. "I'm not working with anyone I just sort of stumbled into here. I'm not a dissident or whatever, I don't even really know what you're talking about with numbers and symbols and stuff."

At that they both stared at her, wide eyed. While the back of her hand had been the center of attention before it was now her face and that was making her feel a little self conscious. She'd pretty much just stopped crying after leaving the other world, she was muddy and wet and her hair was probably a mess, too.

"S…Stumbled?", Doranbolt repeated, thunderstruck.

"And… and you expect us to believe that? The highest security institution in the world, and you say you don''t know why you're here?", Laharl asked breathlessly. Neither of them sounded like their brains were even capable of understanding what she was saying.

_Highest security institution in the world…_ Great. Of course that had to happen. She could've ended up on a meadow full of frolicking sheep and unicorns but no. Of course she just had to turn herself into a criminal in a world she knew nothing of except that their highest security institution was very clean and well lit. Awesome.

"Well I don't really expect you to, because I know that it doesn't sound very probable, but you could try?", Lucy suggested hopefully, batting her eyelashes at them. "How about you just let me go, and I promise never to come back here again?"

* * *

><p>Of course they hadn't taken that suggestion. They'd taken her to an interrogation room and then proceeded to stare at her incredulously as she described her travels through different worlds and how that had just sort of randomly led to her ending up here and couldn't they just be nice and let her go?<p>

Turns out they couldn't.

They both seemed incredibly flummoxed about the whole situation and had told her they needed to look up her identification about a million times, and kept staring at her hand and Lucy really didn't have any clue what to tell them.

So twenty minutes after their interrogation found Lucy dressed in some shapeless baby blue clothes that were hideous, but dry and mud free so she was willing to accept them as an improvement. And she was locked up in a cell, that wasn't really an improvement.

Especially since they'd confiscated all of her belongings, including her keys, so she had no way to get herself out of this mess. Her portalling power would still need a few days, too.

But as long as she didn't have her keys she couldn't leave, so that didn't really matter much.

The cell was oddly shaped, not quite rectangular, but with rounded corners everywhere, making it look a little as though it had been carved out of an egg. There was a small bunk in one corner, which was made out of surprisingly soft material and a toilet with buttons that reacted to just a light dusting of her fingers over them.

But she was not here to admire these asshole's plumbing. Especially considering that the cell had three walls with gigantic holes in them that were covered by some sort of energy field. That was completely see through. So, if she wanted to try out the fancy toilet she'd have to do so in plain view of everyone.

And to think a few short days ago she'd yelled at her friends for going into her bathroom… no, not her bathroom. Not really _her _friends either…

Don't focus on that.

Instead she chose to look around, trying to see if there was anything helpful around. The biggest gap in the wall was the one she'd come in through, facing the corridor. The energy field was a light blue blur, but it was pretty easy to see through. The other two energy fields were more difficult to see out of, but seemed to lead to other cells similar to hers. The fields were darker, and reflected oddly which made them almost opaque.

The reaction upon touching them was pretty much the same for all of them. Which was a bit unsatisfactory, too, since she'd expected to be zapped or singed by it. Instead, she just bumped off it, as if she was a same poled magnet approaching. There was always a slight cushion of air between her and it, and no matter how hard she pushed she could never touch the barrier itself.

Pounding on it with her fists had a similar effect as a trampoline, and even though it didn't help her at all she did it a few more times because it was actually sort of funny.

For a while she'd been wondering if she felt more like screaming or crying, but now she'd discovered it. She felt like laughing like a crazy person.

"This sucks", she announced out loud to no one in particular.

"That's true", someone answered. She jumped a little when she realized the voice had come from the cell on her left and there was actually someone sitting in there, observing her with something like a smirk. Or maybe that was just the light refracting.

"Were you there the entire time?", Lucy asked cautiously.

"Yes, actually. Don't worry, it takes a bit of practice to see through the barriers. You'll get used to it."

"I don't want to get used to it. I don't want to stay here long enough for me to get used to it." She turned away from the force field she'd been pounding it, but not before giving it another swat for good measure.

"Well, in that case you're very unfortunate. You're never leaving here. Same as me", the other prisoner announced. For some reason his voice seemed familiar, but she had trouble placing it. Was that an effect of the barrier, too?

"What do you mean by that? I'm here because of a misunderstanding, as soon as it's sorted I'll be on my way", she declared.

"I sincerely doubt that. Once you're in here, there's no way out."

"But this isn't a prison. They wouldn't make such a big deal about breaking in if the main purpose was to keep people from breaking out", Lucy said with suspicion and closed in on the other cell. She could make out a man sitting on a bunk, but not much else. Who did he remind her of?

"Do you truly not know what this is? Then you're even more unfortunate than I thought. Stumbling into the one place it's absolutely forbidden to be, only to find out that once you've been here you can never be allowed to leave."

"Isn't that a tad too dramatic? So they caught me accidentally trespassing. I didn't do anything, it'll clear itself up." Not too mention that as soon as her portaling powers were regenerated she could just zap out of here. Only trouble was getting her keys back.

He let out a snort. "No, this will not sort itself out. No matter how you happened to get here, and it's hard to believe anyone could get _here_ of all places on accident, once there's a chance you could've seen what's hidden inside of here there is no way they could ever let you walk free again." He bowed his head down, blue hair obscuring his face as he added, barely above a whisper, "At least I was aware of the danger when I chose to walk this path."

"Look, this is going to sound strange, but I'm not from this world." He looked up sharply at her, his features still too blurred for her to make out, but from his posture it was clear that he was listening intently. "I really don't know where we are, or what's so special about being here. What am I supposed to have seen that's so incredibly secret?"

"Not from this world…" he repeated, as if trying to taste the words for himself. "So you're either something beyond all of mine, all of everyone's imagination… or you're not of sound mind. Amnesiac, perhaps…?"

"Yeah, fine, let's go with amnesia. I don't know anything about this world and I need you to explain it to me. What could I be seeing here that would be worth taking away my freedom for?" Lucy conceded. The amnesia story might be good to remember. It would take a lot less time to get people to explain what the hell was going on if she just stuck with that.

"Freedom? Something like Freedom doesn't exist in this world", he said in sort of a wry tone. And in that moment Lucy knew exactly who she was talking to.

"What do you mean by that?", Lucy asked cautiously. Now that she knew what she was looking for, the blue hair and the red facial markings were pretty unmistakable, even through the barriers odd distortions. She really hoped he wasn't crazy.

"So you really don't know? Seems hard to fathom." He looked away wistfully for a moment, but then turned back. "I'll do my best to explain, then."

Of course assuming he might be crazy wasn't a nice thing to do, she reminded herself. She herself had barely interacted with Gerard, and not a whole lot with Mistgun either, knew both of them mostly from stories. But the things she'd heard about the tower of heaven, and then his amnesia… it was sort of ironic he'd supply her with that excuse.

"I'm not sure what you remember, or where it is you come from, but I have the suspicion you might know things working a little differently. Tell me, did you choose your own path in life?"

Lucy raised her eyebrows at the odd question. Thinking about her current situation, traveling through different worlds without any direction she'd have to say no. But everything leading up to that…

"Yes. I mean there's always unforeseen things that throw you off, but overall I picked what I wanted. Why do you ask?"

"Because I didn't. Because nobody I know did. Because there isn't a way to choose around here. Because all we can do is follow someone else's script and hope that there's some rhyme or reason to what we're doing."

"What script?", Lucy asked, stepping closer to the barrier, so that she was almost leaning on the invisible air cushion.

"That's the question, isn't it? The big one, the one that led me here…" Lucy must've been close enough to the barrier for him to make out her confused expression when he looked up. "I'm sorry. I'm getting ahead of myself, aren't I?"

"When we're born, every single one of us, we get an ID tattooed on the back of our hand. And that number defines everything we are and everything we're going to be right from the start on." He held up his right hand for her to see. The string of numbers looked indistinct and blurred.

"Everything is defined from the start. Which school you're going to attend, what higher education you get, which job you're going to have one day, even how far up the hierarchy you can go. We're assigned hobbies and activities as well. And because it's defined that way for everyone, it's clear from the get go who you're going to meet, who your friends are going to be… when you apply for a marriage license they scan both your IDs and tell you if you're a match. I suspect that means they calculate who you're supposed to end up with, too, and make sure there are no deviations."

Lucy gaped at him through the force field and only realized how close she'd gotten when her nose was touching the repelling cushion of air.

"Seriously? And people are allowing that to happen?" Some shady government trying to tell you what to do… she doubted any of her opinionated friends would accept that for even a day. And nevermind them, she would never allow that, either. She remembered very clearly how her father had tried to control her, tried to decide who she should marry… It was no coincidence she'd run from that house with barely a glance back.

"They're encouraging it."

"What?", Lucy's shriek sounded annoying even to her own ears, but she just couldn't believe what she was hearing.

"People are telling their computers what they like to eat, so they just need to scan their IDs to decide where to go when they go out, or which food to buy. They're picking out music they like so the system can give them more to listen to. The less they have to decide on their own, the happier they are."

"That… doesn't sound true." But she knew he wasn't lying to her. "Are there rebellions? Resistance movements? Anarchists trying to bring down the oppression?"

"It's odd you'd assume that. Except for novels I've never even heard those words used. As far as I know the world has always been this way, and no one has ever been unsatisfied with it before."

"That doesn't make any sense. There has to be a time in history before they came up with that system, at least. And I can't believe no one's tried to break free before. Humans don't just accept it when someone's trying to restrain their free will."

"You're assuming this is happening against people's wills", he said, looking at her intently. The longer they were talking the easier it was getting for her to see him through the barrier. He seemed to be watching for her reactions closely.

"Isn't it? I mean, I guess some people would like the convenience, if they don't have to make the difficult decisions on their own, but that just can't be true for everybody."

"According to everything I've ever been taught, it is. People are happy with the way things are. No one I've talked to ever thought to question the wisdom of having everything decided for them. No one's ever understood why I'm questioning the system, or why anyone ever would. You're the first person I've talked to who seems to have a problem with the idea."

"For real? Maybe you've just been talking to the wrong people."

"I don't think that's the issue. I don't know anyone who has a job he doesn't love, no one who hasn't found friends they're very fond of, barely anyone who even knows people they don't like. The system puts everyone where they'd want to be, anyway, or at least that's what everyone seems to think. I have to admit, I like my job, too, I have a girlfriend whom I love, there's not really anything going wrong in my life, or anyone else's."

"There has to be a lie in there, somewhere, because I can't imagine you're too happy sitting in that prison cell, no matter how cool the buttons on that toilet are. And happily following the perfect plan to lead the perfect life the perfect system that puts everyone exactly where they want to be shouldn't land you here, either."

Gerard put his head down and let out a chuckle. "Very observant of you, yes. I'm something of an aberration within this world. Because I'm questioning it."

"And they locked you up for questioning?"

"No, they locked me up for coming here. Same as you."

"And what's so special about this place? Why did you go here if like you said, once you're here you can never leave?", Lucy asked.

"This is where they do it. This is where the IDs come from, this is where all the predictions come from, this is where they calculate everyone's life. And I had to find out how they do it, how they control it, where all this data comes from…" There was a somewhat manic glint in Gerard's eyes as he said that and Lucy wasn't sure she was comfortable with him looking like hta.t

"So, did you find it? How do they do it?", Lucy asked. At that question his face fell and he stared down at the ground.

"I don't know, I never got far enough", Gerard admitted. "I messed up my only chance, and now I'll never know. But at least I can live out my days here knowing that I'm not following their script anymore. That's something, at least."

"Well you don't really know that, maybe they caught you before you got anywhere because they'd calculated you'd be coming", Lucy said. As she heard herself say it she realized that was a pretty mean thing to say. But then another thought struck her before she could apologize. "Wait, you said you had a girlfriend that you love? Did you know you might never come back to her if you went here before you did it?"

"I did know that", Gerard said. "But I just couldn't keep living like that."

"Like what? Happily?"

"No… Ever since I've been little and told about this system I've been questioning it. And questioning myself. Do you have any idea how unsettling it is to make decisions and never know if they're really yours? Falling in love and never knowing if you love them because you choose to, or because someone calculated that you should? It's been driving me crazy, bit by bit. And knowing that no one else feels this way really did make me feel like I was losing my mind."

He stood up at that point and started pacing his cell.

"I had everything planned out so well. Years of preparation went into this, because I had to do it on my own, because not a single person I've talked to about this could understand my worries."

"All my life I've been surrounded by people, but still alone. I love my girlfriend, but even she didn't understand me when I talked to her about it." He gave a bark of laughter that didn't sound happy at all. "Maybe I'm defective. She's probably better off this way, without me…"

Lucy felt like she should say something to that, but she wasn't sure what. Telling him he wasn't right meant his girlfriend wasn't better off without him, and thus it was cruel of him to leave her this way, and he couldn't do anything about it, now, and telling him he was right and she was better off without him was just as wrong.

"But", he said as he suddenly spun around and stalked back to the barrier separating their cells. "You understand, don't you? What's wrong with this world? You see it, too, right? Free will isn't fiction, is it?"

He came at her so intently that Lucy was glad there was a barrier between them. Even so she had to fight the urge to take a step back. He'd been feeling ostracized from everyone else his entire life, and he'd spent who knew how long in this cell, he was allowed to come across slightly unhinged, that didn't invalidate what he was saying.

"If it's really like you say then this is really weird", Lucy agreed tentatively. "Where I come from it's not like that at all, and I don't think I'd want to live in a world where I didn't get to decide my own destiny."

He froze for a moment as she talked, but then a large smile spread across his face as he listened to her. "Thank you", he said breathlessly and took a few steps back from the barrier. "Thank you. You don't even know how much it means to me to hear someone say that. Thank you."

He plopped bonelessly back onto his cot, just grinning into the open air as though he couldn't believe his luck of finally having found someone who agreed with him.

"So now I want to hear your story", he said, looking at her expectantly, now in a much brighter mood then when she'd first noticed him.

"Okay well you might have trouble believing it, but let's see…"

* * *

><p>"So, if you can create portals to other worlds, can't you create a portal from the world inside the cell to the world out in the hallway?", he asked curiously after she was done.<p>

"What? Don't be ridiculous, that's not how it works!", Lucy protested.

"I see. Well it would've been nice", he said with a disappointed sigh, dropping the topic.

_But maybe…_ Lucy looked at her right hand thoughtfully.

* * *

><p>The next few days passed relatively uneventfully. Doranbolt and Laharl both came back several times each to look at her hand, trying to find her identification code even though she kept telling them that she'd never had one so they wouldn't be able to find any remnants or anything. Apparently it was difficult to decide how to deal with her when they didn't know who she was.<p>

She refrained from telling them her name, because she didn't want to cause trouble for her counterpart in this world if there was one. She might have a different name, anyway, but Lucy didn't want to risk it.

Some other people that Lucy didn't know came by to bring food, too, and they were all incredibly interested in her hand, too, because apparently seeing a hand that didn't have a number on it was the most amazing thing ever. She allowed it because they got her extra treats.

Who knew the back of her hand could be more successfull than all of her feminine wiles combined? To be honest she was a little miffed about that.

She'd asked Gerard if he had any genius plan for escaping and it turned out that no. Apparently he'd been stuck thinking that he was just going to stay here and spend the rest of his days sitting in a cell thinking he was crazy for criticizing the way things were going.

For a "dissenter" he was a bit lacking in initiative if you asked Lucy.

If Lucy wanted to start a revolution she'd do way better. She'd write passionate speeches and then tell her friends to go wreck some shit. Well she'd participate in the wrecking herself, too, of course.

By summoning spirits to do some wrecking for her…

But she wasn't really here to start a revolution. All she really knew about this world was what Gerard had told her, and while it was evidently true that everyone had a number on their hand that didn't necessarily mean he wasn't crazy, anyway. Maybe letting him out would be a bad idea anyway, and Lucy was in absolutely no position to judge.

Still, if she found a way to get out of here it would be pretty horrible of her to just leave him in his cell since he'd been really nice to her and everything. But letting a revolutionary out might not be completely beneficial to this world…

Her biggest concern was getting her keys back, though. She could already feel her portal magic returning. It was getting quicker in every world, and she would probably be able to make one pretty soon. But leaving her keys behind was a horrifying thing to consider.

Finding her spirits again had been the first hint of normality, and without their intervention she'd have been in big trouble already. She thought of the smell of her own burning skin and tried not to think too hard of how she'd heard Loke scream back in that one world.

So she definitely had to get out of that cell and couldn't just leave into the next world.

Gerard hadn't asked her about his idea of portaling to the hallway again, because he just took everything she said at face value. And considering that he was apparently one of the most critically thinking people in this entire world Lucy couldn't help but wonder how easy it would be to con everyone here. Not that she would ever con people, it was just a thought experiment.

The portalling power wasn't fully loaded yet, she knew she couldn't get to another world this way. So really now was the only time to try unless she wanted to risk leaving without her keys.

It was a simple idea, but Lucy was embarrassed to admit that it never would've occurred to her if Gerard hadn't mentioned it. But she wasn't sure she'd be able to control it enough. Thus far she'd always tried to tell her powers to get her home and that hadn't worked out at all, but the hallway had to be an easier target than a whole other world.

"I'm gonna try something", Lucy announced. "Keep a look out, tell me if anyone comes."

"Of course. But what do you want to try, I thought you'd figured out the plumbing by now?", Gerard inquired. She'd asked him to keep watch every time she used the toilet, because she really didn't want anyone to stare at her while she did that.

"It's not about the toilet", Lucy said, but didn't elaborate further on what it was about. She didn't want to get his hopes up when she had no clue if she could deliver.

She took a deep breath and concentrated on the magic she could feel running through her hand. It felt like it was pulsing, well not quite as regular as that, more like, flowing? Dancing? She tried to separate the power, not call upon all of it at once, to minimize the risk of getting somewhere else.

A few steps took her to the only solid wall of the cell. Her portals didn't really need walls to stand, but she still wasn't sure what that force field did and if it might interfere with her magic. No one here seemed to know anything about magic so they probably hadn't taken any precautions for it, but it always payed to be careful.

Unless your preferred method of getting stuff done was just bursting in and smashing everything, of course.

Lucy took a lose stance, centered herself, and focused with all her might on the hallway in front of her cell. And then she released part of the power, painting her hand in a circle in front of her in the familiar motion.

And it turned into a glowing circle in front of her, through which she could see the outside of her cell and herself through the forcefield, looking at the cell and herself through the forcefield looking at the… it kept recurring like that, and it was a bit dizzying to see.

She spun around and saw almost she same picture through the force field where a second glowing circle reflected her and her view through she cell.

She couldn't suppress an excited squeal and held her hand through the portal, which waved at her through the wall as she looked back out at the hallway.

This was quite possibly one of the coolest things she'd ever done.

She stepped through the portal and found herself outside, looking back at the cell she'd spent the last two days in. Looking to her right she saw Gerard stare at her through the force field. His features were a lot easier to make out through the front force field than the side one and Lucy had to snort at his dropped jaw and gigantic eyes.

"But… I thought you couldn't do that!", he gasped out completely perplexed.

"Don't underestimate me", Lucy said with a wink.

"_You _underestimated you!", he protested.

Lucy waved it off. "Well I'm always open to learning new things", she said. "Now let's see if I can get you out of there, too."

"You… you would? Really?" His eyes grew even bigger and he looked so mesmerized with hr that Lucy felt a bit uncomfortable at that.

"Not if you don't want me to. But I thought you wanted to start a revolution?"

"Not… necessarily."

"Well anyway I don't know if I can, so don't thank me yet", Lucy said. She wasn't quite sure how to go about this, but she still had some power left.

Concentrating on the wall behind him she grabbed the side of the portal she was standing in front of. An instant later the portal in her old cell vanished, and there was a strange feeling of airlessness at Lucy's fingertips.

But another moment later the door reappeared behind Gerard and he blinked at it.

And then blinked some more.

Before blinking again.

"Uh… you know it's not gonna just suck you out here", Lucy said. "You do kind of have to step through it."

"I just, I….", He stammered, still frozen to the spot. "All the time we were talking, everything you said, I never realized… Magic it never… I wanted to believe, but it sounded to far fetched, so… How truly small my mind has always been, I never knew."

"Okay, I guess, but, you know we should probably get going before anyone finds us", Lucy suggested. She could sort of understand that he needed a moment to be overwhelmed, after all who wouldn't be overwhelmed by her amazing powers? Still she knew her powers wouldn't be all that helpful if someone found them, because she didn't have her keys back yet, so that needed to be the first order of business.

"…Right", he said and finally went over to the portal. He tentatively stretched out his hand which promptly appeared behind Lucy.

If left to his own devices this would probably still take a while because he was so star struck by the magic, Lucy reasoned.

She grabbed the hand and yanked him through, elegantly sidestepping when he stumbled and landed on the corridor floor face first.

"Sorry, we really need to get going", Lucy explained and then pulled him up. "Do you have any idea where they might have put my stuff, I really need it back?"

"I don't know exactly, but I have a theory, at least", he said, dusting off his pants. That were the same boring baby blue material as the ones Lucy was wearing right now.

"Okay let's hope you're right. Lead the way", Lucy instructed. Gerard nodded and then took off down the corridor.

Lucy ran after him, hoping very very hard that they wouldn't meet anyone. He seemed to be very determined as to where he wanted to go, at least.

After several twists and turns they arrived at the glowing doorway that Lucy had arrived at, where she'd been captured only a few moments after arriving, and going there didn't really seem to be a great idea after just having escaped her cell.

Just as Gerard slid to a stop in front of that doorway Doranbolt and Laharl came out of there.

Perfect.

Gerard stared at them, and they stared back, everyone frozen for a moment. Lucy decided to take that chance and to turn around and escape, but unfortunately she found herself face to chest with a large guy in the same uniform as the other two. _Shit._

"Halt!", Laharl called out, sounding pretty stunned. "How is this possible, how did you escape?"

"Uh… guard left the key?", Lucy suggested. Which was of course completely ridiculous because there had never been a single key involved not in locking her up and certainly not in escaping.

"Which guard?", Doranbolt asked confused.

"There are no keys!", Laharl interjected.

"Just like there are no dissenters? Look at them, they definitely exist", he said, gesturing at Lucy and Gerard.

"I'd never assumed out facilities wouldn't be sufficient to hold them, what do we do now?", Laharl wondered out loud.

Lucy was half tempted to suggest they just let them go, since they couldn't hold them anyway, but before she had a chance to say anything the glowing from the room behind the two guards or whatever they really were intensified and a distorted voice called out,

"_Is that the girl you were talking about? The one the items you just showed me belong to?"_

Everyone in the hallway froze, Gerard with wide eyes as if a gigantic revelation had just occurred and the guards all stared at the door with something like reverence in their eyes. Lucy herself lit up at the mention of items, because if her items were there maybe there was a chance that she could get them back now.

If she could get past the guards and whoever was behind that door, of course, but hey, being a Fairy Tail magician was all about positive thinking. Also friendship and property destruction but these didn't matter so much at the moment.

"Yes, sir, ma'm it is her", Laharl responded, and Doranbolt next to him nodded enthusiastically even though at the angle he was standing whoever was in that room had no hope of seeing him.

"_Bring her inside, I want to talk to her", _the mysterious voice said. Now that Laharl had called it "ma'm" Lucy realized it did sound vaguely female,

"Of course, right away, it'll take but a moment", Laharl said, and Doranbolt grabbed her arm and pushed her through the doorway.

"You should really work on your manners, I would've come if you'd asked!", Lucy yelled at him, but before he had any chance of answering a door suddenly materialized out of thin air, cutting her inside the room off from the people in the corridor.

A second after it appeared it looked as though the door had always been a part of the wall, if she hadn't been staring at it Lucy never would've been able to tell where the doorway had even been.

"These items are not from this world, and neither are you", the voice stated. It sounded clearer now, but it was still ringing oddly.

Lucy was suddenly filled with trepidation, because she really wasn't sure she wanted to face whoever was behind her in that room now, especially considering how all the guys outside had acted at hearing her voice.

But there was no way around it now.

Lucy slowly turned around to survey the room. It wasn't as well lit as the rest of the complex, the only light coming from a gigantic glowing contraption in the middle of the room that seemed to consist of blue strings of light moving from the ceiling down to the floor. It painted a striped pattern of light and shadow on the contents of the room. There was a strange sensation coming of it, one that Lucy found familiar but she couldn't quite place.

Next to the column of light there was a table on top of which Lucy saw her belt and her etoile fleuve and most importantly her keys. She lit up as she saw that, but her enthusiasm was curbed when she finally spotted the owner of the voice.

It was less of a person and more of an outline of one, a woman apparently, slightly smaller than Lucy herself. The stellar mage could see right through the shape of the woman, whose edges seemed to be illuminated with the same blue light as the contraption in the room while the rest of her was slightly darker, making the wall behind her appear as though Lucy was looking at it through sunglasses.

"How did you get here, who sent you? From the nature of the items I assume you're somewhere from the epsilon world cluster, sending you here would use a tremendous amount of energy. All to sabotage this project?"

"I… don't really know what you're talking about, to be honest. I've been sort of lost between different worlds for a while, I just ended up here on accident", Lucy tried to explain.

"Ridiculous. One does not get lost between worlds travelling from one to the other is an incredibly complicated and draining task, you had to be aiming for this one. Why? Where did you get the energy? Who seeks to disturb this mission? I will personally see them crushed. No one else should have the required resources."

Lucy really didn't like the sound of that. "Look, I'm sorry I messed with your project or whatever, it really wasn't my intention, I don't want to be here at all, I just want to go home. If you just give me a few more days I can leave and I'll be out of your hair." If she had hair, that was. The outline looked like it at least.

"Not good enough", the woman's shape said frostily. Every now and then strips of light meandered from her to the contraption and Lucy realized that she seemed to be tethered to it. "Who put you here, what exactly is your mission, and how much damage did you cause before you were caught? You should not try to test my patience."

"I didn't do anything, they caught me the second I got here", Lucy tried to defend herself. Her right hand was itching and the rubbed it on the side of her leg. "No one put me here, well I sort of did myself, but I really didn't mean any harm by it!"

"No one put themselves anywhere. You see how much energy is needed just to transfer my image into this world? You expect me to believe that you, without any help, jumped here?"

"You're not really here", Lucy realized, staring at the connection between the glowing column and the woman's shape. "You're a projection!"

"Of course I am. Don't try to pretend that an agent of an organization with the means to transport you this far only recognized that fact just now."

"I keep telling you, I'm not an agent of anything", Lucy said. Her hand wasn't really itching anymore, now it felt more like a tingling. But it felt like it was getting stronger, demanding more of her attention when she really didn't have any to spare on that.

"Saying something ridiculous several times doesn't make it any more true", the woman said haughtily. Lucy couldn't see her face, but she was doing a good job conveying her sneer by sound alone.

"And covering your ears saying lalala really loud doesn't mean all other sound go away. I'm sorry you don't like what I'm saying, but that doesn't make it any less true, and I'm not going to start inventing a story to make you feel better", Lucy said. She looked down at her tingling hand and finally realized what was going on. And why that contraption looked so familiar.

It hadn't looked exactly like this at that time, it had been unstable, glowing and spinning madly, but she recognized the feel of it. She'd been using the energy of a similar device for all her travels thus far, a similar device had thrown her into this mess to begin with.

And that meant…

"Well if you'll excuse me I don't really have time to be arguing with you, I need to get home", Lucy announced and sauntered over to the desk where her things were. She took them without any opposition from the woman's projection that probably couldn't interfere with her physically even if she wanted to.

"We're not done with this conversation and this room has no doors, you're not going anywhere", the projection spat venomously.

"Well, if it doesn't have any doors", Lucy said, strapping her belt around herself and attaching her pouch of keys to it after having made sure they were all there. "Then I just need to make one myself, don't I?"

She attached the etoile fleuve to her belt, and knew she probably looked ridiculous with that damned blue outfit, but it didn't matter all that much.

"That's not within your power."

"Guess you're going to be surprised then", Lucy said, and went to touch the contraption. The energy hummed, responding to the power she'd aquired and it was hers for the taking with barely any need to concentrate on it.

"What are you doing? That's impossible how is that…" The projection screeched.

But Lucy just winked at her and swung her hand in the air, creating a new portal ready to take her to whichever world it happened to take her.

"You're not getting away that easily!", the woman roared and just as Lucy stepped through the portal there was a weird noise and shaking, but it was too late for her to turn around and see what was going on there.

* * *

><p>Despite whatever had just happened she arrived at the next world unscathed, as far as she could tell. She was in a room full of machines and blinking lights, some chairs were scattered about, but she couldn't see anyone.<p>

"Hello?", she asked tentatively. Hopefully there was no one there…

Was her last thought before something heavy hit her over the back of the head and she lost consciousness.

* * *

><p>AN: It's been a while since I've really had anything to do with Fairy Tail, I sincerely hope this isn't too bad.

I'm not making any promises on when the next chapter is coming, but I've started a rhythm of updating something each week (mostly One Piece) and I'm including this in that so hopefully it won't be as long till the next chapter.

Thanks to everyone who supported this, and special thanks for taking the time to read this far after so long.

Title inspiration comes from "Utopia" by Within Temptation (and also the fact that it's a utopic setting…). Also fitting are the songs "Still Alive" and "Want you gone" by Ellen McLain, for reasons that should be obvious if you know those songs.

Let me know what you think and feel free to yell at me for how long this took…


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